|
Homeowners Adjusting to New Pesticide
Era
 Auburn,
March 17, 2003
--- Dealing with common home and garden pests will require consumers
to learn more and fight smarter, especially now that they no longer
can rely on the broad-spectrum pesticides many took for granted just
a few years ago.
That is the
advice of at least one pest expert who has spent the last few years
helping consumers adjust to several key pesticides that already have
been phased out following passage of the Food Quality Protection Act
of 1996.
The act, which
imposes a strict ban on any pesticide product that may threaten
human health, especially those of infants and children, already has
resulted in the loss of two key home pesticides: Dursban and
Diazinon.
But that was
only the beginning. Orthene, another common home insecticide used
for ornamental and turf insects, also is being phased out, though it
still will be permitted for use on individual fire-ant mounds.
Much of this
void already is being filled with new classes of insecticides that,
while safe and, in most cases, highly effective, will require far
more of the consumer.
“They’re good
products,” says Dr. Wheeler Foshee, an Alabama Cooperative Extension
System pesticide education specialist. “But they only control
specific pests, and they’re not as effective over as long a period
as many of the products that have been taken off the market.”
Gone are the
days when a consumer could apply a broad-spectrum pesticide in the
yard, confident it would take out the undesired pests. The problem
was that it often took out one or two nontargeted pests – some of
which served a very useful purpose by preying on undesirable pests.
The new products
are more insect-specific, meaning that they are designed only to
take out one species. That’s the good news. The bad news is that
while they are safer for people and the environment, they often turn
out to be a headache for consumers.
Some products,
for example, have to be applied at a certain point during the
insect’s growth cycle; otherwise the whole effort will be wasted.
“What homeowners
are beginning to find out is that if they’re really serious about
taking responsibility for insect control around the home, they’re
going to have to learn how to identify the types of pests in their
homes and on their ornamentals and landscapes before they even can
begin to determine which products are best suited to their
situation,” Foshee says.
For the truly
serious consumer, Foshee says there are other methods besides
chemical control that place more importance on removing sources in
the home and on the landscape that may attract unwanted insects in
the first place.
“Insects are
looking for three things: food, water and shelter,” Foshee says,
“which means you can remove and manipulate some things in the homes
and on the landscape that would make these areas less desirable
habitats for potential pests.”
“It could be as
easy as placing mulch around tomato plants to ward off potential
predators or planting insect-resistant varieties.”
“Even
fertilizing a lawn and watering it regularly keeps it healthy and
more resistant to pests.”
A few
broad-spectrum chemicals are still available, including malathion,
widely used on ornamentals and turfgrasses, as well as pyrethroids,
a family of pesticides that specifically are being marketed to fill
the void left behind by some of the products that have been
cancelled.
Pyrethroids,
which are a synthetic version of a chemical derived from
chrysanthemums, are very safe for humans and do not linger for very
long in the environment after application.
However, while
they work very well in some cases, some experts are concerned that
they will lose their effectiveness over time, as some insects can
develop resistance to them.
(Source:
Dr. Wheeler Foshee, Extension
Pest
Education Specialist, 844-5509)
Article in MS Word
Article in Text
|
