LESSON 4: PEST CONTROL
of dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT).
4.1. PESTS AND PESTICIDES
PESTS - something or someone that annoys us,
detracts from some resource that we value, or
interferes with a pursuit that we enjoy.
BIOLOGICAL PESTS
- organisms that reduces the availability, quality, or
value of resources useful to humans.
 Only about 100 species of organisms cause
90% of crop damage worldwide.
INSECTS are most frequent pests.
- make up three-fourths of all species on Earth.
 Most pest organisms tend to be
GENERALISTS - opportunistic species that
reproduce rapidly, migrate quickly into
disturbed areas that are pioneers in ecological
succession.
- compete effectively against specialized
endemic species.
PESTICIDES
 PESTICIDE - chemical that kills/repels pests.
 BIOCIDE - kills wide range of organisms.
 HERBICIDE - kills plants.
 INSECTICIDE - kills insects.
 FUNGICIDE - kills fungi.
 ACARICIDE - kills mites, ticks, and spiders.
 NEMATICIDE - kills nematodes.
 RODENTICIDE - kills rodents.
 AVICIDE - kills birds.
 OVICIDE - kills the eggs of pests.
NOTE: Pesticides can be defined by their method
of dispersal or their mode of action.
Antibiotics used in medicine to fight infections are
pesticides as well.
PEST CONTROL HISTORY
Using chemicals to control pests may well have
been among our earliest forms of technology.
 Sumerians controlled insects with sulfur 5000
years ago.
 Chinese describe mercury and arsenic to
control pests 2500 years ago.
 People have used organic compounds and
biological controls for a long time.
 Romans burned fields and rotated crops to
reduce crop disease.
MODERN PESTICIDES PROVIDE BENEFITS,
BUT ALSO CREATE PROBLEMS
 The era of synthetic organic pesticides began
in 1939 when Swiss chemist Paul Muller
discovered the powerful insecticidal properties
DDT - cheap, stable, soluble in oil, and easily
spread over a large area.
-highly toxic to insects, but relatively nontoxic to
mammals.
-its mass production started during World War II.
 Paul Muller received Nobel prize in 1948 for
the discovery.
Pesticide use has increased dramatically since
WWII.
 Almost nothing in 1950 to $33 bilion for 2.6
metric tons in 1999.
 90% of pesticides are used in agriculture or
food storage and shipping.
 In US, household applications represent 12%
of all pesticide use, but almost 23% of
insecticide use.
By the 1960s, evidence began to accumulate that
indiscriminate use of DDT and other long lasting
industrial toxins was having unexpected effects on
wildlife.
RACHEL CARSON (1962)
-published Silent Spring; warns that POPs, such as
DDT, pose a threat to wildlife, and to humans.
Most uses of DDT were banned in developed
countries in the late 1960s but it continues to be
used in developing countries and remains the most
prevalent contaminant on food imported to the
United States.
PESTICIDE TYPES
One way to classify pesticides is by their chemical
structure.
1. ORGANIC PESTICIDES
-include compounds of arsenic, sulfur, copper,
lead, and mercury. These are generally highly toxic
and essentially indestructible, remaining in the
environment forever.
2. NATURAL ORGANIC PESTICIDES
- “botanicals”; generally are extracted from plants.
3. FUMIGANTS
- generally small molecules such as carbon
tetrachloride, carbon disulfide, ethylene dichloride
amd dobromochloropropane that gasify easily and
penetrate rapidly into a variety of materials.
4. CHLORINATED HYDROCARBONS
-fast acting and highly toxic to sensitive organisms.
(DDT-mothballs)
-inhibit nerve membrane ion transport and block
nerve signal transmission.
-persistent - tend to biomagnify.
5. ORGANOPHOSPHATES
-extremely toxic to mammals, birds, and fish.
(Malathion)
-outgrowth of nerve-gas research.
-inhibit neurotransmitter enzyme.
6. CARBAMATES
-similar to organophosphates.
-Sevin: extremely toxic to bees
 Halogenated pyrroles - a new class of
compounds based on a naturally occuring
microbial toxin, has been shown to educe egg
laying and egg survival in ducks at very low
concentration.
7. BIOLOGICAL CONTROLS
- are living organisms or toxins derived from them
used in place of pesticides.
 microbial agents
 Bacteria
 Parasitic wasps
4-nonylphenol - a powerful endocrine-hormone
disrupter.
PESTICIDE RESISTANCE IS OFTEN RAPID AND
WIDESPREAD
 Resistant members of a population survive
pesticide treatment and produce more resistant
offspring.
 Pest Resurgence- is observed when pests
previously targeted and successfully controlled
by pesticide recur, but in higher numbers than
they did before. 

PESTICIDE BENEFITS

DISEASE CONTROL
 Many insects serve as disease vectors or in
the transmission of a number of disease-
causing pathogens and parasites.
 Malaria, spread by the Anopheles mosquito, is
one of the largest causes of human disese and
premature death in the world. By controlling
mosquitoes, pesticides save millions of lives
per year on tropical countries.
 Some other related viral diseases such as
encephalitis and West Nile, also carried by
mosquitoes, and trypanosomiasis or sleeping
NOTE: Widespread use of crops genetically
sickness caused by protozoa transmitted by
engineered to produce pesticides endogenously is
the tsetse fly. Onchocerciasis (river blindness)
likely to cause even more pesticides resistance.
and filariasis are caused by tiny worms spread
by biting flies that afflict hundreds of millions of
PESTICIDE MISUSE CAN CREATE NEW PESTS
people in tropical countries.
 The worst side effect of broadcast spraying a
pesticide is that we kill beneficial predators that
WITHOUT PESTICIDES, WE MIGHT LOSE TWO-
previously kept a number of pests under
THIRDS OF CONVENTIONAL CROPS
control.
 Without modern chemical pesticides, these
 Under normal conditions many herbivoous
losses might be much higher
pests are controlled by natural predators.
 In some cases, insects and fungal diseases
 With advent of chemical pest controls, farmers
cause only small losses in terms of the total
have tended to abandon traditional methods of
crop quantity, but the cosmetic damage they
pest/pathogen control.
cause greatly reduces the economic value of
 Mixed crops and rotation regimes.
crops.
 A lack of understanding of the ways pesticides
CROP PROTECTION
adversely affect beneficial organisms is one
 Using pesticides, pre-harvest losses to disease
reason pest managers stick with chemical-
and pests are at 30%, with post-harvest losses
based system despite declining pesticide
at an additional 20-30%.
efficiency.
 In general, farmers save an average of $3-$5
for every $1 spent on pesticides.
SOME PERSISTENT PESTICIDES CAN MOVE
LONG DISTANCES IN THE ENVIRONMENT
PESTICIDE PROBLEMS
NON-TARGET SPECIES
 The qualities that make DDT and other
- up to 90% of the pesticides we use never reach
chlorinated hydrocarbons so effective-stability,
their intended targets
high solubility and high toxicity-also make them
- the effects of poisoning non-target species are
environmental nightmares.
immediate and unmistakable.
 Because chlorinated hydrocarbons (DDT) are
so persistent, they tends to show up far from
the point of dispersal.
 Stored in fat bodies, and thus tend to
bioaccumulate.
 High levels detected in upper levels of food
chain.
 DDT banned rom US for over twenty years, but
high levels still detected in some areas.
In a study of human pesticide uptake and storge,
Canadian researchers found the levels of
chlorinated hydrocarbons in the breast milk of Inuit
mothers living in remote arctic villages were five
times that of women from Canada’s industril region
some 2500 km to the south.
Grasshopper effect - compounds accumulate in
polar regions in which they evaporate from water
and soil in warm areas and then condense and
precipitate in colder regions.
 Many persistent organic pollutants were
banned globally in 2001.
 Use was banned or restricted in developing
countries for years but between 1994 and
1996, the US shipped more than 100000 tons
of DDT and POPs annually.
-Many returned to US in agricultural products
and migrating wildlife.
2. Mechanical cultivation
3. Flooding fields
4. Habitat diversification
5. Growing in pest-free zones
6. Adjusting planting times
7. Plant mixed polycultures
Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)
- naturally occuring bacterium that kills the larvae of
butterfly and moth species but is generally
harmless to mammals.
INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT USES A
COMBINATION OF TECHNIQUES TO FIGHT
PESTS
Integrated pest management (IPM) is a flexible
ecologically based strategy that is applied at
specfic times and aimed at specific crop and pests.
- tries to minimize use of chemical controls and
avoid broad spectrum controls.
- employs economic thresholds to determine the
point at which potential economic damage justifies
pest control expenditures.
Economic thresholds - the point at which
potential economic damage justified pest control
expenditures, and the precise time, type, and
method of pesticide application is critical in IPM,

HUMAN HEALTH PROBLEMS

PESTICIDE EFFECTS ON HUMAN HEALTH CAN

BE DIVIDED INTO TWO CATEGORIES:

1. ACUTE EFFECTS
- including poisoning and illnesses caused by
relatively high doses and accidental exposures.
2. CHRONIC EFFECTS
- include cancer, birth defects, immunological
problems, endometriosis, neurological problems,
Parkinson’s disese, and other chronic degenerative
diseases.

 WHO estimates between 3.5 and 5.0 million

people suffer acute pesticide poisioning, and
20000 die, each year.
 At least two-thirds resulting from occupational
hazards in developing countries.
 Long-term health effects difficult to
conclusively document.
NOTE: PCBs have been linked to learning
difficiencies in children. (Intake during mother’s
pregnancy)

ALTERNATIVES TO PESTICIDE USE

 BEHAVIORAL CHANGES
1. Crop rotation