SPECIALTY CHEMICALS: Diseases: The Preventive Approach

Finding customers with turf diseases can be a daily occurrence for some lawn care operators (LCOs). Many homeowners are more than agreeable to the curative treatments needed to save their lawns. However, convincing these customers that preventive treatments could help them avoid these problems all together can be a different story.
 
Michael Boyd, owner of Kemko Lawn & Shrub in Loganville, Ga., knows all too well the challenge of selling a preventive program. “We had a customer who was on an applied-as-needed program,” he explains, “and we were applying fungicides as the problem presented itself on a curative basis. Well the disease just kept coming back. Every time we would get into a weather situation, the disease would rear its ugly head. Now this customer is on a preventive program, and he’s thrilled with the results.”
 
Mike Daly agrees. “The best disease control programs are used preventively to make sure that problems are never noticed by the customer and turned into complaints about the appearance of their turf,” says the fungicide business manager for Bayer Environmental Science, Research Triangle Park, N.C.

WHAT THE SERVICE ENTAILS. High-quality lawns that are being maintained during hot summers are the best candidates for disease problems, particularly in areas with poor soils, Daly points out. “Without addressing these disease issues, the customer will sooner or later decide that the rest of their lawn care package is not delivering the kind of results they thought they were purchasing and may cancel their service,” he says.
 
This is why disease control can be the perfect service addition for lawn care operators with customers who have these types of lawns.
 
Basic lawn care services can include fertilization, weed control and surface insect control. Adding fungicides into the service mix can be a challenge for any LCO. According to Steve Ambrose, general manager of ABC Pest & Lawn Services in Austin, Texas, fungicide application services are offered on the front end to all of his customers. “Disease control is an option that is offered on all properties that have a type of grass that may be disease prone, such as St. Augustine,” he says. “We try to focus more on a preventive program. In other words, if a homeowner is on our regular service, and they have purchased our fungicide treatment, we try to do everything we can to be proactive in the early fall to get down a preventive application so that symptoms will never be present. In my opinion, it’s better to work on a preventive program as opposed to a curative one.”
 
Daly concurs. “In all cases (on warm-season or cool-season turf), the best time of year to start a disease program is before the pathogen starts affecting the turf,” he explains. “That period of time depends on the pathogen, the host and the weather patterns in place at the time. Most people wait too long to start a disease control program and compromise the ultimate effectiveness of the fungicide by forcing it to work in a curative fashion, at the same time using a low rate of product with a long interval between applications.”
 
While some lawn care operators offer disease control as part of their overall package, others offer it as an add-on service. The typical lawn care service for Clarence Davids & Co. customers consists of four applications of fertilizer, two applications of preemergents and two applications of broadleaf weed control. A fungicide application is sold as an add-on to the regular service. “In regards to fungicide on turf, most of our treatments are sold just about the time we start seeing the disease,” explains Brian McAnally, division manager, lawn care and quality control/maintenance supervisor for the company, which is located in Plainfield, Ill. 
 
Whether a lawn care operator chooses to incorporate disease control in their regular lawn care service package or offer it only to clients who have a history of turf disease on their properties, some pesticide manufacturers suggest that presenting the service in an total package format might be best. “Disease control is really about providing a total lawn care service package to customers and should be positioned and priced that way as a way to ensure that customers are delighted with the lawn care service they contracted for, including disease control,” Daly suggests.

NEW FUNGICIDE ADVANCEMENTS. New fungicide advancements can have a positive impact on any LCO’s business. These advancements include not only products, but how operators can market fungicide treatments to their customers. Kyle Miller, senior market development specialist with BASF in Richmond, Va., outlines three advancements. “First, manufacturers are marketing products just for the lawn care segment,” he points out. “This is quite a change since the market has focused on the golf industry for so long. Secondly, the market has some broader spectrum products that may have 20 or more different diseases on the label. This is a real advantage for the lawn care operator. Lastly, there are some fungicides now that show good residual meaning they will last a month on a lawn and that’s a real time saver.”
 
The price of fungicides has also decreased as they’ve been adapted for the lawn care market, Miller says. Bob Yarborough, turf and ornamental business unit manager, Advan, Roswell, Ga., agrees. But though they are coming down, fungicide prices are still higher than other products a lawn care operator is used to purchasing and applying.
   
For instance, according to Miller, a typical LCO may charge $50 for a routine application containing fertilizer and pre- and postemergent products on a 7,000 square foot lawn. The cost of the product amounts to about $9 per lawn. But an application of fungicide at the full rate on the same lawn may cost $50 per lawn, and that just covers the cost of the product, Miller explains. So when the average LCO’s total pesticide expenditure is around $46,467 (based on 2004 research, according to Miller), $6,320 of that will go to fungicide purchases, while $16,907 goes to insecticides, $11,343 goes to preemergent herbicides, $7,746 goes to selective herbicides and $4,151 goes to nonselective herbicides, Miller says. Overall, Miller’s research shows that 60.5 percent of LCOs offer fungicide services, so there is a need for disease control in the marketplace despite the product’s extra cost. The trick is getting the customers to buy into the service, since the majority of LCOs (54.9 percent) say only 1 to 10 percent of their customers’ lawns are treated for disease control, Miller says.
 
In addition to newer fungicides priced more reasonably for the lawn care operator – 33 to 50 percent lower, according to industry suppliers – the increase in generic pesticides may also help improve product affordability, Yarborough adds.
 
However, with any pesticide purchase, LCOs should examine their options carefully since price isn’t the only factor to take into consideration – for instance, product efficacy, packaging and company support can also be crucial, Miller points out. “I think it just depends on whose product it is and is it a quality product,” he says. “Will the company stand behind that product if you have a problem? Do they have history in the turf marketplace? Are they going to bring new products to the marketplace in years to come? I think we need to ask these types of questions.”
 
Ambrose lists technical support from the manufacturer as his top priority when purchasing products. “Fungicides can be expensive, and disease is a big problem. If it doesn’t work I want to be able to pick up the phone and have someone come and figure out why.”
 
Dan Loughner, product technology specialist, Dow AgroSciences, Huntingdon Valley, Pa., suggests researching fungicide effectiveness, including results, history and experiences from other applicators. Another consideration is residual. “You don’t want something that needs to be sprayed every couple of weeks,” he explains. “If a fungicide is going to give six weeks of residual, but it’s going to cost twice as much, is that favorable to my business versus something I have to spray every three weeks at a much lower cost? You have to weigh your options.”
 
After figuring out their product options and costs, many LCOs wonder when they should add fungicide services. Boyd recommends lawn care professionals listen to their customers. That’s exactly what he did. “Customers were asking for it so we decided to add it,” he explains. “It wasn’t challenging at all – the market was there, and the only challenging part was finding the right employees and getting them trained.” Kemko followed this same logic when it began treating trees and shrubs for disease in the 1990s.
 
When adding fungicide services, lawn care operators should consider pricing carefully. Some companies price by the square foot and others take the entire property into consideration. “We typically treat the whole property because it is a preventive program,” Boyd points out. “But we also offer a square foot treatment because some properties are so large that it would be unrealistic to treat the entire property.”
 
Turf Management Lawn Care charges $9 to $10 per 1,000 square feet for most fungicide applications, according to the Lawrenceville, Ga.-based company President Steven Vandervest. That price includes a 25-percent markup for materials.
 
Preventive fungicide programs can be more profitable because the company can include them in routine routes, Vandervest says, estimating that 25 to 30 percent of the company’s clients are on a preventive program. Turf Management’s preventive programs are usually targeted toward cool-season grasses and begin at the end of March when temperatures near 80 degrees and humidity reaches 70 percent.
 
Curative applications can be less profitable because they require technicians to make multiple stops, which means Vandervest must pay for added labor and fuel costs. In general, he says fungicide applications result in 15-percent profit margins compared to 25-percent profit margins for other lawn care applications.

SERVICE CHALLENGES. Adding fungicide treatments to a service mix can be a challenge even with established customers. Kemko experienced that obstacle just this spring. “We did really good business last year,” Boyd explains, “but when we contacted our customers for this year’s program, almost 75 percent of them backed off of the fungicide treatment. I’ve seen this type of situation before. The customers don’t want to address the situation until the situation addresses them. I guarantee you once the fungus rears its ugly head they are going to be calling us wanting the treatment again.”
 
Explaining the high cost of fungicide applications to inquisitive customers is another challenge facing LCOs. Ambrose recommends explaining to the customer that the cost of the curative materials is higher and usually a second application is necessary which can add to the price; however, he has seen less of a need to explain fungicide pricing due to more savvy homeowners. “We find that quite a few customers have tried to do fungicide treatments themselves so they’re not sticker shocked by the prices,” he says. “They have been to the big box stores and know this product is expensive.”
 
McAnally sees the unknown as the most challenging aspect to selling fungicide services. “Not knowing if you’re going to have disease that year is difficult for the customer to understand,” he states. “You’re trying to sell a preventive program and the disease hasn’t appeared yet, so the customer wants to know how we can predict what is needed. It can be challenging, but after applying a curative treatment two or three years in a row, that customer is no longer a hard sell.”

EDUCATING CUSTOMERS. It has become increasingly important for customers to understand that without fungicide treatments, even the best lawn care operator cannot save a lawn from disease. So what is the best way to educate a customer? “Sometimes you just have to meet with them,” Boyd recommends. “We have pamphlets that we put out with photos so homeowners can identify what disease their lawn might have, but because your business grows each year and you add new customers, sometimes you have to start over with them, and face-to-face meetings are best.”
 
With the advent of the Internet, homeowners are becoming more educated not only on the uses of the products, but also on the expected costs. Ambrose has found his customers are using the Internet to research their lawn problems. “They are pretty educated when it comes to disease,” he says. “We have a lot of people who will tell us what disease has infected their lawn before we get out there because of the Internet. They kind of have an idea of what is going on and they will access the Texas A&M Web site or some other lawn care Web site and learn more about it. This is definitely a new trend that has developed in the last five years.”
 
Boyd has also found that his customers are actively searching for information regarding their lawns.
“Overall I think customers have become more educated than they were 20 or 30 years ago,” he says. “From 1970 to 1980 even the state of Georgia, including the University of Georgia, had no idea how to take care of lawns. It was all pastures, field crops and farms. Now I’m finding that customers are becoming very educated, and I like to think we as lawn care operators have been part of that process ourselves through our customer service.”
 
“It seems as customers get older they are willing to pay for the things that they want,” Boyd adds. “If they want a nice looking lush, green lawn, they are more than willing to pay for the maintenance needed to keep it looking that way.”