Fendona® CS Controlled Release Insecticide Means Business

Ants are big business in Oklahoma, where fire ants, odorous house ants and acrobat ants keep the phones ringing in pest control offices throughout the spring and summer. It’s one of the reasons Mother Nature’s Pest & Lawn, a second-generation, family-owned business in Tulsa, Okla., has grown so dramatically in recent years.

The company’s management identifies market opportunities and goes after the business aggressively, recognizing there’s no substitute for quality products delivered by quality service personnel. Mother Nature’s Pest & Lawn has developed its stellar reputation for service excellence by utilizing the latest technology and addressing emerging pest problems in a proactive fashion, nipping potential callback issues in the bud before they start costing the company business.

“We do a lot of perimeter pest control work, coming out to our customers’ homes at least every quarter,” says General Manager Justin Buckmaster, a 15-year veteran of the firm. “As a company, we really push preventive service over one-time service. We’ll even guarantee our customers that they won’t experience a pest problem indoors as long as they allow us to treat the perimeter of their home.”

It’s a business model that has proven highly lucrative for the 40-year-old pest control business, but it only pays dividends if callbacks are kept to a minimum. So, when the company’s callback rate began to tick up last year, Buckmaster and Mother Nature’s technical team began to consider various product options, including Fendona CS insecticide, the newest general use insecticide from BASF Professional & Specialty Solutions.

“The pest department was already using Fendona CS insecticide, as well as several BASF Alpinebranded insecticide products, with great success in a variety of accounts,” Buckmaster said. “That prompted us to try Fendona CS insecticide for our perimeter service work,” where acrobat ants and odorous house ants had become major nuisance pests, prompting callbacks to spike.

With the switch to Fendona CS insecticide, featuring alpha-cypermethrin, a third-generation pyrethroid with a proven track-record of success in various countries, the callbacks stopped. Buckmaster attributes the improvement to the product’s enhanced formulation that kills insects fast, and extends the residual life of the insecticide long after treatment. “In Oklahoma, we can have five different types of weather in a single week,” he says with a laugh. “That’s why when we considered making a product change we looked at microcap insecticides that would last 90 days under a variety of weather conditions.”

Fendona CS insecticide’s advanced micromesh encapsulation process produces smaller microcaps, resulting in more microcaps on treated surfaces and broader insecticide coverage. And once attached to the insect’s exoskeleton, the active ingredient quickly diffuses through the advanced microcaps once they contact the lipophilic waxy cuticle of the pests, resulting in efficient kill.

For perimeter applications, Fendona CS insecticide is applied to soil in a 6- to 10-foot wide band around and adjacent to structures. The building foundation is also treated to a height of 2 to 3 feet, along with all entry points to structures (i.e., doors, windows, etc.). An application rate of 0.5 to 1.0 fluid ounce of concentrate per 1,000 square feet is recommended.

Using such a treatment protocol, “we’ve had great results with Fendona CS,” Buckmaster says. 

Fendona CS insecticide has proven so effective against ants and other perimeter pests that Mother Nature’s Pest & Lawn began looking at how they might be able to use the product against other labeled pests, including mosquitoes, upselling its customers on the merits of a vector control program. They weren’t sure, however, if the product’s stellar performance against ants would transfer to mosquitoes.

For that reason, the company decided to take it slow, performing mosquito field trials last year on one route with approximately 250 customers. “We applied the product from early spring through the beginning of summer,” Buckmaster says. It produced excellent results, virtually eliminating costly callbacks.

The product performed so well, in fact, that the company switched all its mosquito accounts to Fendona CS insecticide this spring. “The way it performed during those testing periods were a decisive factor in our decision,” he says. “We gave it a good three-month trial and we were very pleased with what we saw.”

Once again, the product’s unique formulation is paying dividends for PMPs, producing smaller particles with better rain fastness for broader coverage and more effective mosquito control. It also binds tightly to the waxy cuticle of insects, resulting in enhanced kill.

“Customers don’t want to live with mosquito problems any longer and with Fendona CS insecticide we’re not just killing bugs, but performing an essential public health service,” Buckmaster says.