Biological Basics

The very nature of controlling weeds, insects and diseases presents an ironic challenge. The products lawn and landscape professionals use to manage these tasks are complex in nature, yet these professionals often learn how to use them through on-the-job training as opposed to spending years in a classroom. As a result, manufacturers can face difficulties bringing new product categories or classifications to the market since users may not fully understand the new product and how to use it.

Biological control products may be a perfect example of this challenge. Increasing environmental awareness spreading across the United States demands that new control products be as easy on soil and water as possible. But the obvious business challenges associated with caring for someone else’s lawn necessitates immediate and thorough control at an affordable price. For many horticulture professionals, synthetic pesticides have clearly demonstrated the ability to deliver on these demands.

Increasing government regulations and even consumer pressure in some markets for more environmentally friendly soil inputs mean lawn and landscape professionals must constantly evaluate their turf management practices and look for opportunities to improve. Understanding many of these newer options, though, requires an open mind and some thorough education.

"Pest management is changing, and it is critical to learn how to adapt to those changes," noted Wendy Gelernter, PACE Consulting, San Diego, Calif. "Unlike the broad-spectrum pesticides of the past, biological control products have narrow host ranges. This once limited their use. Today, the entire pesticide industry, whether it is the biocontrol company or the conventional agrichemical manufacturer, has moved rapidly to develop and commercialize very different kinds of products."

KNOWING THE FACTS. "It’s interesting to note that when you go into the forest, disease is the exception rather than the rule, so I think there is something to be said for a biological approach," pointed out Wayne Wall, president/chief executive officer, Plant Health Care, Pittsburgh, Pa.

The problem, as Wall sees it, is the false ideas circulating through the landscape marketplace about biological products. "There is a fair amount of confusion about what biological control really is because of the many different categories of product, not unlike the confusion surrounding organic products," he related. "A big part of the confusion is that people hear biological control or biopesticides and they automatically think it relates to integrated pest management (IPM), but they’re two very different things.

"One is outright prevention with naturally derived products and the other is using pesticides more sparingly to control a problem," Wall continued. "Historically, organic or biological management of plants has been looked at in isolation from other treatments. What people are understanding now is that the combination of biological technology, good plant management practices and IPM ultimately delivers the most cost effective, best results."

One reason for some of this confusion is that biological products – as well as some synthetic pesticides that are more biologically derived – are relatively new to the landscape industry. As a result, contractors may not understand them entirely, and they may use them improperly, which leads to unacceptable results and their refusal to continue using them.

"These new products that we are seeing, including the chemical pesticides, have much narrower host ranges than their predecessors did," Gelernter explained. "They are much safer, but they may not be as easy to use. This is because some of the new products take longer to kill pests than conventional pesticides. Some target only a few pests rather than the huge number of pests that broad-spectrum materials targeted. Some products will control only one stage of the pest rather than all stages."

The importance of understanding the differences between the types of products comes from the fact that they do have different performance characteristics. There are undoubtedly some instances where synthetic pesticides are more effective than biologicals.

"Biological products are part of a holistic, comprehensive approach, and pesticides are used to attack problems that arise," Wall explained, pointing out a key difference between biopesticides and synthetic insecticides or fungicides. "Biologicals can’t be equated to the silver bullet of pesticides because pesticides are used at a point when you’ve already gone beyond what biologicals can do."

"You have the agrichemical world and organic world both creating a dichotomy that everything is either black or white with these products being chemical or not, organic or not, and the middle ground is where the true value exists," Wall related. "As a result, we think there will be a significant shift from chemical technology in terms of fertility and pest control to biological technology. Today, we’re probably looking at 95 percent of the products purchased today being synthetic and 5 percent being biological, and we expect that to shift to 35 to 40 percent biological in the next five years."

Wall said he expects much of this shift to be driven by landscape architects and golf course superintendents – two areas of the green industry that are less price sensitive when specifying or purchasing products. "Some of the landscape maintenance and nursery companies are very cost driven when purchasing products, and they aren’t as motivated to change," he added.