If you’re new to organic pest control, then you might find it hard to grasp that you can control pests without using any chemicals.
But here’s a piece of information: it’s better. Not just for your crops but also the environment.
How? Let’s check.
How is Organic Pest Control Better?
Organic pest control, unlike the popular opinion, isn’t hard at all. It just needs a lot of mental work. All you have to do is combine modern technology with your scientific knowledge of ecology. The usual practice of using chemical control is harmful to the environment, and even for the animals that are not harmful to your produce.
The toxic species can be effectively controlled using organic methods. Traditional methods of organic pest control include green manure, mechanical cultivation, crop rotation, compost, and biological pest control.
The prerequisite for organic pest control is feeding your soil with wholesome compost instead of artificial fertilizers. Compost will act like a nutrient-filled food for your plant. If the soil is healthy, the plant will be automatically strong and healthy.
Methods of Organic Pest Control
Here are some practical and easy-to-do methods for organic pest control:
Crop Rotation
Crop rotation is one of the best ways to control pests from damaging your produce. It is done by dividing your vegetables/fruits into a minimum of four groups that keep rotating half-yearly. These groups of crops stay in one place at one time but move to the next part of the rotation when spring arrives.
But make sure that you group your vegetables as per their similar feeding habits, or group vegetables/fruits of the same family.
Hand Picking
Sometimes not using anything is the best prevention. For crops that are sensitive to any pest control, you’ll have to invest some time and energy to remove infestation by hand. It’ll also keep you assured of pest removal.
Barriers
This is an excellent method of organic pest control. Some pests do not like specific barriers or deterrents. For example, slugs don’t like copper pipings or wires. So, if your crops are prone to getting slugs attracted to it, you can surround your plants with such materials. You can also install plastic bottles or straws around your plants. Pests don’t like these. house ants
Organic Deterrents
Many organic deterrents are environment friendly but are extremely unfriendly to pests. Plant oils, soapy water, DIY home-made pesticides, home-made fungicides, cider vinegar, and horsetail tea are some of these organic deterrents.
You’ll have to make a perfect DIY deterrent for the slugs or pests that you often find in your garden or agricultural land.
Water Spraying
A light soap solution works best when you want to control pests from infringing your crops. However, don’t use the soap solution as is. Mix it with water. This method works wonders with aphids and species of its family.
Natural Predation
Some pests destroy your crops, and then there are those predators that protect it. You should know how to make a difference. Slugs and aphids are scared of ladybirds, frogs, and hedgehogs. You can encourage natural predation by placing the predators in your garden/ agricultural land to limit the number of harmful pests like slugs.
The critical point here is to know what method to implement. To identify that, you can get a pest identification done by professionals like Empire Pest Control in London. Once identified, you can implement a suitable method and control pests from damaging your crops without causing any harm to the environment.
