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QAL B LICENSE LANDSCAPE MAINTENANCE PEST CONTROL EXAM 2025/2026 ACTUAL TEST COMPLETE ACCURATE QUESTIONS AND CORRECT VERIFIED ANSWERS WITH RATIONALES (A NEW UPDATED VERSION) |GUARANTEED PASS A+ (APPROVED EXAM 2025/2026) Define IPM in a landscape maintenance context Answer- Ecosystem based strategy that focuses on long- term prevention of pests or their damage through a combination of techniques such as biological control, habitat manipulation, modification of cultural practices, and use of resistant varieties What are the advantages and disadvantages of pest management methods that make up an IPM program in landscapes, turf grass, and interiors capes? Answer- Chemical control:
- advantages: effective, quick and easy to get control with chemicals, reasonable cost
- disadvantages: risk of damaging no target organisms, some have the potential to damage surfaces or the environment
Biological control:
- advantages: no need for chemicals, provides long term control, does not negatively impact the environment
- disadvantages: not always cost effective, does not work quickly Mechanical/Physical/Cultural control:
- advantages: can prevent damage in the first place (depending on method), requires no pesticides, many methods result in healthier plants and a better managed environment (i.e. ensuring proper irrigation and overall plant vigor)
- disadvantages: time and labor intensive What is the importance of site-specific variables? Answer- - avoid damaging nearby organisms, humans, items, and environmentally sensitive areas
- avoid potential hazards that might endanger the operator during application
- time the application to reduce rusk to beneficial and to disrupt the least amount of people in the area
Answer- Helps you manage the pests on site and preemptively take measures to control levels of pests instead of responding when major damage occurs; allows you to incorporate imp into your management plan Define natural enemies and explain how they control pests Answer- naturally occurring organisms that prey on pest organisms; they help control populations of pest insects and help maintain their populations at acceptable levels Describe nonchemical pest management practices Answer- Biological control: involves the use of natural enemies to keep pest populations at manageable levels; includes modifying the environment to encourage natural populations and augmentation Mechanical/Cultural control: includes exclusion, trapping, destroying pests, altering pest's life cycles, cultivation, ensuring plant health (sufficient water, nutrients, etc.)
Explain the relationship among the components of an effective IPM program Answer- Parts work together to maintain pests at acceptable levels (below the economic/treatment threshold) while preserving human and environmental health chemical control can knock down pest populations which are then maintained by biological control (usually natural enemies) that keep populations at an acceptable level, mechanical control can also assist with this goal is to maintain acceptable levels and manage the populations, not treat with chemicals in a reactionary way What is selectivity as being relates to pesticides? Answer- Refers to pesticides that control a small number of more closely related organisms often leaving beneficial and no target organisms unharmed What are the factors that control a pesticide's selectivity?
Exposure: how you contact a pesticide Toxicity: ability of a pesticide to injure a person two pesticides may have similar toxicities but different hazards (i.e. one is more likely to be inhaled so it is more hazardous) Hazard is the combination of toxicity and exposure Why is identifying pests correctly important? Allows you to better determine how best to control the pest population Allows you to pick the correct pesticide to treat the pest Why is it important to identify the plant(s) affected by the pest? Help you identify the pests infesting the plant based on common issues for the plant Helps you distinguish between symptoms of infestation and general plant appearance
Helps you determine the best course of action for treating said plant- including which pesticides you can use on it Main groups of common pests and their identifying features Weeds- any unwanted plant in a given location Invertebrates- physical presence, chewing damage to leaves, exit holes from trunks of trees, frays Vertebrates- mounds near tunnels, girdling of trees, droppings, nests Pathogens- discolored leaves, splotching and mosaic patterns on leaves, root issues, wilting, physical signs of fungi Different types of characteristic plant damage caused or nuisance created by insects and other arthropods Insects/arthropods have distinctive patterns of feeding. Can be anything from "tunnels" of eaten tissue under the leaf cuticle (in things like leaf miners), missing leaf
Sedges: weeds that resemble grasses but have triangular stems What are the different types of plant damages caused by abiotic factors and pathogens? Abiotic: poor growth, chlorosis, necrosis, deformed plant parts Pathogens: chlorosis, necrosis, poor growth, deformed plant parts, wilt, shoot blight, cankers, galls, leaf spots, soft rots, scabs, discoloration or mosaic pattern on leaves NOTE: Big difference between abiotic and pathogen damage is that pathogens often have physical signs- like mycelium for fungus, or presence of bacterium or viruses on tests- that help differentiate between the two. Lab testing helps out a lot with identifying biotic factors and determining if you have a biotic issue or an abiotic issue when no physical signs are present Common vertebrate pests of landscapes and turf grass and the damage they cause
Birds and Mammals Mammals include things like rats, mice, ground squirrels, gophers, moles they cause many types of damage:
- birds: nests, droppings, eat fruits and veggies, damage plant material
- mammals: carry disease causing fleas, mites, lice and ticks; damage turf and plants, infest homes, large mammals can prey on pets, create mounds or burrows that are safety hazards, infest homes and food stores What resources are available for identifying pests, symptoms of infestation, and damage caused by pests? Online guides, illustrations, photos, labs, experts What are the pesticide toxicity categories and signal words, and what does each category mean in terms of a pesticide's effect on humans and animals? Signal words: POISON DANGER > DANGER > WARNING > CAUTION
Explain how contact and systemic pesticides control pests differently Contact- kill a pest by physical contact Systemic- the chemical is taken into the plant or pest and acts on a systemic level (i.e. a plant is treated with an insecticide and after taking up the chemical, the parts of the plant targeted by the pest become toxic to said pest, killing them upon consumption) List and define factors that influence efficacy of pesticides pesticide uptake- influenced by type of formulation and environment. Defined as the way the pesticide is absorbed by the tissues of pests. Can also be impacted by structural differences, protective coatings, and habits of the pest pest life stage- point in their life when the pest is targeted. Example: weeds are more susceptible to herbicides as seedlings
Know the pesticide formulation types and their advantages and disadvantages SEE SEPARATE STUDY SET CALLED "QAL Laws and Regulations- Pesticides and Equipment" What is the role of adjuvants in pesticide applications? Adjuvants are used to improve the mixing and application qualities or to enhance pesticide performance there are many types of adjuvants:
- Surfactants, stickers, sticker spreaders, extenders, activators, compatibility agents, buffers, acidifiers, deposition acids, defamers, thickeners, attractants What are the indications that a tank mix of two or more pesticides is incompatible? Precipitates out into clumps in the tank
4 main types of exposure: dermal, ocular, respiratory, oral dermal: burns, rashes, dermatitis, internal poisoning ocular: damage, blindness respiratory: lung damage, difficulty breathing oral: severe injury or death What are the various fates of pesticides in the environment, and how do different pesticides and application methods influence the pesticide's fate? fates: runoff, drift, leaching, photodecomposition, leaching, volatilization, reside, bound to soil particles, decomposed by soil microorganisms formulation method can determine how susceptible a pesticide is to each various fate (i.e. spray applications are much more at risk for drift) formulation type can also determine how susceptible a pesticide is to each fate (i.e. granules are much more at risk for runoff)
List the types of offsite movement of pesticides drift, runoff, leaching, volatilization In what ways can pesticides impact no target organisms? through drift, residues, runoff, persistence any time a chemical comes into contact with a no target organism, it can do damage. for plants this can look like phytotoxicity or herbicide damage, for insects this can look like killing beneficial or natural enemies, for vertebrates this can look like a predator eating a poisoned rodent and becoming poisoned itself What is phytotoxicity? chemical injury to plants List the factors that influence the likelihood of phytotoxicity in landscape, interiors cape, and turf grass applications.
environmentally sensitive areas (streams, irrigation ditches, ponds, lakes, fountains, homes, schools, or parks) application hazards (ditches, embankments, steep slopes, electrical wires, electric fences, electrical outlets, motors, pilot lights and other sources of sparks and combustion, stairs, improperly ventilated spaces) Describe how to identify potentially sensitive areas that could be adversely affected by pesticide application, mixing and loading, storage, disposal, and equipment washing. look around the application area prior to beginning application. Look specifically for these types of areas or other hazards that could be damaged during application How can applicators ensure the public's safety before, during, and after pesticide applications?
- notify people in the area about the planned pesticide application
- explain the potential hazards and possible exposure symptoms
- describe what you are doing to reduce these hazards
- explain how people can avoid exposure
- make applications at times when people are not present
- prevent drift or other off-site movements of pesticide materials outside treatment area
- prevent water used for irrigation or other purposes from running off of pesticide treated areas What must handler safety training include? heat stress identification, prevention, and mitigation while wearing PPE handling pesticides as part of the job How does PPE protect a person from hazards associated with pesticides? By preventing contact of sensitive body parts from pesticides
