Problem: Callbacks, complaints

The problem for lawn care professionals, apart from customer complaints, has been costly callbacks to retreat for re-infestations. But that's changing.

It's an idea that many lawn care customers find hard to understand but once they do they find it equally hard to resist, says Judi Pittman, owner of Nitro Green Lawn Care, Madison, AL. Who does she target with this message? People who maintain active lifestyles on their properties, customers with children and/or pets or those that get joy out of gardening, for example.

Pittman admits she was hesitant to promise clients season-long "fire ant free" properties, but after two years of exceptional results, she knows that she can do it and many of her clients want it.

"This year, in addition to marketing to our current customers each time we have a contact with them, we're also marketing this service to our new customers and about 20 percent of them have signed up for our fire ant program," says Pittman.

Solution: They stay away or die

The reason for her confidence is the new TopChoice granular fire ant insecticide from Bayer Environmental Science (Bayer ES). Originally adopted by turf managers for its ability to slay pest mole crickets, it was later found to be both curative and preventative for fire ants, as well. Bayer ES claims that it gives at least 95% fire ant control for up to a year with a single application.

The reason for this lies, in large part, with the product's active ingredient, fipronil. Foraging ants contact the granules containing fipronil and return to their mounds where they (and the product) come in contact with other ants. Eventually the insecticide reaches the queen and once she's gone and the workers are dying, the colony collapses. The product, because it acts relatively slowly, spreads throughout the colony without the ants being aware of it. The product takes several to six weeks to destroy a colony, depending upon conditions.

Unlike other fire ant controls, the product provides a lengthy residual effect and creates, in effect, an exclusion zone. If and when new ants appear on treated property they die.

While the product can be put down any time of the year and still retain its long-term effectiveness, says Bayer ES, Pittman's techs apply it in spring for two reasons:

• that's when mounds appear and people start calling.
• often lawns are too soggy for her techs to use their ride-on Perma Green spreaders for fertilizer applications,so they apply TopChoice with walk-behind broadcast units. For flowerbeds, they apply it with hand spreaders.