On Sat, 23 Jul 2005 09:42:02 +0000, Steveo wrote:
Timothy wrote:
On Thu, 21 Jul 2005 13:46:17 -0700, travelinmatt wrote:
Take the information for what it is worth and don't worry that a
company sent it out.
1. If you want to prevent grubs, now is the time to appy the products
to do so. It helps with the environment because treating now with the
specific product for grubs is a lot less toxic than treating after
they are already doing damage to the turf and the lawn company has to
use a general pest control that kills a lot more insects including
the beneficial ones.
I have to completly disagree with this statement. You CAN NOT prevent
grubs but only kill the ones that may already be there.
Actually Merit or Mach II only work as a preventitive, not a curative.
Correction noted. Thank you for exposing my error, I was un-aware of Merit
as a product but I'm familiar with imidacloprid which turns out to be
Merit's main active chemical. While it's true that imidacloprid is a
systemic pesticide and will kill feeding adult beetles, it will kill ALL
sucking/chewing insects.
While many folks would see nothing wrong with knocking down whole
populations of chewing/sucking insects, this is not a responsible
management tactic in my personal opinion. My personal opinion be as it
may, I must warn you and others about the use of imidacloprid. I sat in on
a conversation a little while ago on imidacloprid and it's possible
effects on the enviroment and people. All I can say is ..."Whoa"!
I strongly suggest that you and others read up on imidacloprid. Here's
a few sites worth looking at:
http://www.pesticide.org/factsheets.html
http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/Actives/imidaclo.htm
So at the end of the day, I would only suggest that the use of this
chemical if there was a serious infestation that was un-affected by other
treatment options. Of course I'm only speaking to the infestation of turf
areas and not commercial crop areas. Btw, it seems that there is valid
evidence that imidacloprid will transmogrify readily in soil, has a long
half life (six months or more) and it seems that it's has mutagenic
effects on DNA. There is also very strong evidence of resistance build-up
developing in many insects to imidacloprid.
--
Yard Works Gardening Co.
http://www.ywgc.com/