Pests are one of the menaces existing in the agricultural and environmental world. Generally, there are different kinds of pest, as they fall under various categories of animal species. Low agricultural produce results from pest infestation, which immensely affects crop yield. The higher the population of pests infesting a farm, the higher the damages caused. Ways to put an end to the pest situation have had a positive impact on agriculture. While this remains to be the case, have a look at some of the factors that actually lead to rapid increase in the pest population.
1. Poor methods of farming
Several methods of farming are effective for pest control. One of them is crop rotation. Crop rotation refers to the alteration of the plant species on a farm each year or over a period. Literally, if you plant maize this season, then you should plant French beans or peas the next season. Some farmers lack this crucial knowledge causing the number of pest to increase uncontrollably. The merits of this method include low cost, natural elimination (no pesticides required) and highly effective in terminating a big number of pests.
2. Monocropping
In many parts of the world where agriculture is doing well, farmers attribute this to a number of reasons. A low number of pests or even none at all is among the factors. Monocropping is planting only one kind of plant species on your farm. If this goes on for a long time, pests are likely to flourish in this kind of environment. An alternative solution to this method is intercropping, which involves planting several different plant species on the same land. Combining this method with crop rotation gives the pests a hard time to breed, feed and grow.
3.Not using food chain tactic
Nature has a food chain that all living organism follow for their survival. The good thing about these food chains is that they are largely diverse and as such, some pests that feed on other pests. Good examples include mites, wasps and ladybugs. These predators ensure that the entire pests that cause damage to crops are off the scene. However, if a farmer fails to identify these kinds of predators in his or her farm and make good use of them, he will not be able to reduce the number of pests easily.
4.Relying on artificial pesticides
Artificial pesticides work thoroughly on the pests ensuring that they are utterly annihilated. However, the shortcoming is that most of them are expensive. If you have a large farm, you will have to spend a lot to purchase enough pesticides for the whole farm. Though several options are available, not all are good. For instance, just because you do not have money to get the pesticides it does not mean that you can wait for your crops to grow and give you revenue to do that. There is use of organic manure, which is effective and since it has low levels of chemicals, it causes little or no harm to your plants while at the same time giving you good yields.