IPM in Action

Broccolo Tree and Lawncare’s steady annual 10 percent revenue growth isn’t the expected result of heaping tons of advertising dollars into the local media (it’s all word of mouth); offering rock-bottom pricing (although they are competitive); or cutting labor costs (employees are paid much higher than the industry standard).

Rather, Broccolo’s success is due largely to its mastery over and commitment to IPM that it has enjoyed since its first employee, founder and owner Laurie Broccolo, scouted her first grub 19 years ago. Even the last four digits of its phone number is “4-IPM.”

Fully 50 percent of Broccolo’s revenue is attributed to IPM. Maintenance and landscape design rounds out the rest. Since the company opened up shop in Upstate New York, it has served 2,500 clients. During the peak of the growing season, a dozen technicians each handle between 20 to 25 lawns per day with an average payout of $500 per year. 

“More people are calling us because of our environmental practices,” says Terry Schmitz, IPM Manager for Broccolo. “They are looking for different approaches to protect and beautify their lawns and landscapes. With that, we can then forge a partnership between them, ourselves and the environment… all three working together.”

Even though many of Broccolo’s customers have an environmental-consciousness, they still want to see competitive rates. “We will make comparisons to traditional methods vs. IPM to show our customers just how competitive we can be,” says Schmitz. “Most often, it’s a 50/50 split in cost between inspection and application. But, as the season progresses, there can be huge variables.”

Most years, Broccolo treats on average no more than 5 percent of its clients’ lawns for grubs. Schmitz figures that following IPM practices for grub management prevents the application of more than 16,000 pounds of product for a total cost savings to the company of $17,000. They reserve the cost savings for paying their employees, who have to conduct additional scouting and training to practice IPM, higher wages.

Most of Broccolo’s IPM clients are residential. Schmitz explains one of the reasons why Broccolo doesn’t have many commercial customers is due to the huge turnover of the grounds managers who need to buy into and be familiar with IPM over a period of time.  “Most are in and out within two years or so,” he says. “Also, many budgets are run by committees and committees can change often.”

Broccolo’s employee turnover stays below 5 percent for many reasons (the industry average is 20 to 30 percent). Its 20 staff members are well paid for their environmental expertise and persuasive communication skills on IPM. They are also empowered with strategic planning, enjoy flexible scheduling and work in teams (sometimes as many as five technicians are assigned to a property at one time), Schmitz says.

Broccolo’s extensive ongoing employee training and research is closely attached to the horticultural (IPM) program at nearby Cornell Cooperative Extension, a leading institution for IPM training and R&D. The company generally hires Cornell horticulture students as interns for seasonal work. To handle its steady growth in maintenance and landscape design, it hires out eight to 10 subcontractors.

Broccolo attributes a mere 10 percent of new clients calling them specifically because they want to align themselves with a company that offers environmental alternatives in lawn care. “One of our biggest challenges is educating new customers about IPM,” says Schmitz. “The concept of a good lawn care program with a goal to minimize spraying is still difficult for the customer to grasp,” says Schmitz. “Many of our new customers still believe they have to blanket their entire lawns with insecticides to be effective. They are unaware of other alternatives. When we explain that on average only 3 to 5 percent of the entire square footage of their property is necessary to treat for grubs every year, they are taken aback.” The highest spike for treatment was 27 percent during a severe drought period during the late ‘90s. 

Despite Broccolo’s success embracing IPM, Schmitz believes that IPM (to the majority of the industry and its customers) is still not taking hold the way it should be. “There is still the mentality that ‘you have to spray or its not going to work,’” he says. “Those habits are hard to break. There is still room for growth on everyone’s part.”  

The author is a freelance writer based in Akron, Ohio.