For Atlanta, Termite Control Means Traditional Chemical Pesticides as well as Organic Methods

Subterranean termites are the most common and economically important wood-destroying organisms in the United States. Because of this, in dry Atlanta, termite control companies take pest regulation seriously.

Termites feed on cellulose, primarily dead wood and wood by-products. They live in colonies containing hundreds of thousands of individuals and cause billions of dollars in damage each year.

There are two general categories of termite control. The first is the liquid termite treatment which uses liquid termiticides, applying it to soil or spraying it around the house to kill or repel any termites that come into contact with it. Its purpose is to provide a long-lasting chemical barrier, preventing the pests in the ground from entering buildings and prohibiting them from returning to the soil. On the other hand, baiting is another category for termite control. This consists of palatable food that the termites consume, combined with a slow-acting substance that is lethal to the pests. It gradually kills them off while allowing them to infect each other with the poison.

Although the methods are accepted, they have many harmful effects and are quite expensive. Alternatively, for the second category of termite control, Atlanta termite control companies are now using organic control methods to avoid any harmful effects for both humans and nature. These methods help promote natural pest control mechanisms. They are also often cheaper than applying chemical pesticides. There are organic pesticides that are used the same way as chemical pesticides, but without its negative effects. The products may be purchased easily in stores or online, or they can be applied professionally.

Breda Pest Management is a family-owned business that started in 1973. It provides Atlanta termite control services, and is currently using infrared technology and organic methods to reduce and manage pests. Visit their website at http://www.bredapestmanagement.com or contact 770-466-6700 for more information.

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the benefits and disadvantages of both methods of pest-control??
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Pests in one kind or the other are found throughout the planet. Whether they are the insects, bacteria, mites, snails, nematodes, viruses, rodents or birds, all come under the head pest if found in unwanted areas or in unnecessarily huge numbers. Pests have the potential to wipe out entire economies and make the people starve if allowed to propagate and act unchecked.

Even the ancient civilizations understood the necessity of pest control. Those days, pesticides available from natural sources were used. With the advent of the industrial age and rapid growth of population, requirement for food and raw materials from natural sources increased manifold necessitating more areas coming under commercial agriculture. Chemical pesticides or synthetic pesticides proved their worth during this period as they not only could remove pests from large areas in no time, the left overs also could act as repellents too for some period of time. That they are available to counter all kinds of pest infestations under the sun makes more and more people gravitate towards them in no time.

Chemical pesticides are classified into two groups according to their potency. The broad spectrum pesticides have the capability to eliminate or incapacitate a wide array of species. The narrow spectrum ones destroy only a small group of species.

However, the strengths of these pesticides are, unfortunately and ironically, their biggest weaknesses too. These poisons act uniformly, with destructive results, on harmful and friendly animals alike. They have even caused the extinction of many bees, butterflies and other insects from the plant.

However, chemical pesticide manufacturers now advise the user about the amount of poisons to be applied, how and when they have to be used, and how they should be handled. Researches are also underway to make them environment friendly. Given all the drawbacks, the role these pesticides played in ensuring food security cannot be undermined, till a viable or equally potent substitute comes up.

Here are some of the more common ways to treat termites with chemicals. Please note these chemical treatments are also used as preventative treatments as well.

• Liquid Termiticide – Liquid termiticides are usually applied completely around and underneath a structure covering all areas where termites might gain access.

For new construction, this is accomplished by treating the graded soil before the slab is poured. For an existing building, the perimeter of the foundation is trenched and drilled then treated with termiticide.

The goal of the treatment is to put a chemical barrier between the termites in the soil and the structure above. The chemical barrier can also affect those termites inside a building by preventing their return to the soil. In many cases these termites will die of dehydration.

• Repellant Termiticide – There are several repellent termiticides on the market. These termiticides are all pyrethroids. Pyrethroids are fast acting nerve poisons that are highly toxic to termites but have low toxicity to mammals.

Some of the pyrethoid termite products include Dragnet FT, Cynoff, and Talstar (FMC Corporation, Philadelphia, PA) and Demon and Prelude (Syngenta, Inc., Greensboro, NC).

The pyrethroids are also highly repellent to termites. In most cases, they are so repellent that termites foraging under the soil will avoid coming into contact with the termiticide and forage elsewhere.
There are advantages and disadvantages to repellent termiticides. One advantage is that a complete barrier will effectively keep termites from coming into the structure. Also, the pyrethroids used for these barriers are relatively inexpensive and last for several years.

The disadvantage is that termites are able to detect this termiticide barrier in the soil and avoid lethal contact with them. This is important because applying a perfect barrier under a fully constructed house is very difficult.

Construction features, plumbing lines, and landscaping are just a few of the obstacles that hinder liquid termiticide application. Because of these difficulties, there are often gaps in the treatment where the termiticide was not applied completely.

Eventually, foraging termites may locate these gaps and gain access into the structure. If these termites find the structural wood, they will tunnel back through the untreated gap and recruit other termites into the building.

• Non-Repellant Termiticides – At the time of this writing there are two non-repellent termiticide treatments available on the commercial market. Both are nerve poisons like the pyrethroids, but they attack different sites on the nerve.

These chemicals are not repellant and termites cannot detect them in the soil. Therefore, the termites tunnel into the termiticide while foraging, contact the chemical, and die.
Premise (Bayer Corporation, Kansas City, MO.) contains the active ingredient imidocloprid. Imidocloprid is unique because it not only kills termites that contact a lethal dose, but it also kills them at doses too small to cause immediate death.

If a termite contacts even a very small amount of imidocloprid it will become lethargic and forget to eat and feed other termites. It will also forget to groom itself so it soon becomes infested with soil fungi.

The termite eventually dies as a result of these indirect symptoms of imidocloprid exposure. A disadvantage to Premise is that it is somewhat more expensive than the pyrethroid termiticides and in some cases may not last as long in the soil.
Termidor (Aventis Environmental Science, Montvale, NJ) is the newest termiticide on the market. Termidor became available in February 2000 for use as a non-repellent termiticide. The active ingredient is fipronil.

Fipronil is unique in that it can be transferred from one termite to another through contact and trophallaxis (communal feeding). This allows it to affect more termites than those that contact the chemical directly.

The advantage of this product is its long-term effectiveness in the soil. Test data indicate that fipronil may be effective longer after the initial application than other liquid termiticide products. A disadvantage is that Termidor is more expensive than other liquid termiticides.

Pest control means management of a species creating problems for human beings directly or indirectly, since it is considered to be harmful to an individual’s health, the economy or the ecology. Pest management is at least as old as agriculture as it was necessary to keep crops free from unwanted animals and insects.

Chemical control dates back 4500 years, with the Sumerians using Sulphur compounds as insecticides. In India the Rig Veda, which is about 4000 years old mentions the use of poisonous plants for pest control. But chemical management became widespread with industrialization and mechanization of agriculture in 18th and 19th century, and the introduction of insecticides Pyrethrum and Derris Today chemical pest control is the dominant type of pest control. But its aftereffects have led people to think about alternatives in the form of traditional and biological pest control.

The chemical agents include herbicides, insecticides and fungicides.

Long lasting synthetic compounds which affect the nervous system of insects on contact are applied as insecticides. Examples of most effective insecticides are the chlorinated hydrocarbons DDT, Chlordane and Toxaphene, even though DDT has been banned. Organophosphate insecticides include Malathiom, Parathion and Dimethoate. 2, 4- dichlorophenoxyacetic acid is the most effective herbicide, used to kill broad leaved weeds.

The disadvantage of using pesticides is that though they are valuable for agriculture, they can cause serious harm. Hence more and more people are shifting to organic and biological pest control measures. I would recommend you to find more lots of information about the pest control methods and safety measures before you start something. This information can be found through many sources. There are many directories which provide free of cost information about pest control and other valuable topics. Enough research can help you a lot in making the right choice. You should always be careful with chemical methods of pest control because they are very useful but can cause lot of problems