An old product made new - imagine that! In the chemical world it is not as easy as one might think. You can't take a cutting and propagate at will. Enstar, as I remember, was one of the first products that controlled pests by use of Insect Growth Regulation (IGR), as a means to an end... (end of the buggy pest).  Problem with that first product, was it burned the plant you tried to save.  The manufacturers made a grand effort to fix the burn and came out with Enstar II. And that was fun, but remained a little dicey for many plants.

Now, they, Wellmark, introduce the newest product: Enstar AQ.  I'll bet 'AQ' stands for water. Water is  good, although costly. Of course, there is less chance of burn using water as the carrier. And of course you'll have to use more product, moving up from ounces to quarts. No big deal... if it doesn't burn and controls all the insects claimed on the label. Insects like whiteflies, thrips, aphids, soft-bodied and armored scales, mealybugs, leaf miners, glassy-winged sharpshooters, and not the least,  fungus gnats. Did I forget anything?  - Yes!...Only use on ornamental plants in greenhouses, shade-houses, lath houses (who has one of those?) and interior-scapes. This IGR, S-Kinoprene, prevents insects from maturing and the adults lay sterile eggs. (Too bad it doesn't work on humans, it might have been that fountain of youth so desperately sought after!).

 These are hard times, even for bankers, although you wouldn't know it by looking at the interest rate on my credit card! So to cut back on expenses one grower friend had to lay off most of their workers. A large order comes in and it's a rush to pull the weeds that normally would not be there if he had used the pre-emergent herbicide routinely applied in the fall. No-never-mind that!  Clean up the plants and stage for pickup. What does he find? Ants! Hit a guy when he is down, one of nature's golden rules. What do you do? Bait would take too long. Organophosphates may not move into the soil and are very water soluble- meaning they could move off-site in the rain or irrigation. Pyrethroids tend to stick to soils and not move throughout the root zone. There is good news here - he used the prethroid  Astro with a soil surfactant that did the a great job.  And... here is the good news --- the price of Astro is nearly half of what it was last year.

Inert Ingredients

When I send someone to the store to buy a pesticide off the shelf, I always tell them to search the bottle for the 'active' ingredients because that's the chemical in the container that does the work. For the majority of the products out there, especially the homeowner products, the 'active' ingredients make up a small portion of the total amount of chemical in the container. The majority of the chemical compound is what is known as the 'inert' ingredients, which can contain all kinds of things such as surfactants, clay, water-soluble oils, etc., and they are largely ignored. Inert ingredients, however, are very important components in the effectiveness of a pesticide.

Recently, the inert ingredients of a product caused great fervor on the central coast of California, and it was the subject of a court case that had wide ranging implications. I'm sure you have heard of the Q rated light brown apple moth (LBAM) that invaded the Monterey area, and I'm sure you've heard that the insect has impacted nursery shipments. Obviously, pesticides should be used to eradicate this invasive pest, but the public in this area is well known for its prohibition of synthetic pesticide use. So, one of the solutions recommended was to use pheromone lures to disrupt mating and eventually cause population crashes of the moth. Pheromones by themselves are rather innocuous, and therefore they were applied broadly in the area through aerial application. The public mindset was such that they were opposed to any use of any chemical no matter how innocuous and found a way to get the courts to put a stay on the application of the pheromones. How? They used the inert ingredients.

On September 24, 2007, opponents of the aerial applications of the pheromone filed suit to halt the pesticide spraying program because the inert ingredients may cause harm and that the manufacturer and the government agencies refused to disclose the names and concentrations of the inert ingredients. In addition, the mayor of Albany, California called for the resignation of CDFA Secretary A G Kawamura, citing that the pheromone had not been tested for long-term human exposure risk, and that the inert ingredients are toxic and carcinogenic.

There has been a push to reveal inert ingredients of pesticides for quite some time, but in October of last year, the EPA responded to two petitions that designated more than 350 inert pesticide ingredients as hazardous. Obviously things swing with the political winds, but this EPA is considering ideas to increase the disclosure of inert ingredients to an even greater degree than that requested by the petitioners by requiring the disclosure of all inerts rather than just hazardous inerts. The EPA believes that revealing inert ingredients including those not deemed hazardous will help consumers make informed decisions and will better protect public health and the environment.

The chemical companies do not list the inert ingredients on their packaging for proprietary reasons. As I mentioned above, the formulations largely determine the effectiveness of a product and they would rather not reveal this to competitors. In addition, during product development, the EPA evaluates the safety of ingredients in a product's formulation when determining whether the pesticide should be registered. Therefore, they have already revealed the ingredients to the EPA.

What does this have to do with you? Do you think costs will increase due to the new requirements on the chemical industry?

The EPA has opened a public comment period on this decision. They will accept comments for 60 days after December 23, 2009, when it was published in the Federal Register.

Obviously, the agricultural chemical industry is not happy about this because they are afraid they will be revealing proprietary secrets, and you can be assured that your costs will increase if the companies are required to do more research on effects of inert ingredients. You can also be assured that the chemical industry will be commenting to the EPA during the comment period. For more information about the issue and the petitioners from the, see the following EPA web site: http://www.epa.gov/opprd001/inerts/index.htm. To make comment, see the link on this page that looks like this (docket ID EPA-HQ-OPP-2009-0635).

James A. Bethke, UC Cooperative Extension San Diego
Ph: 760-752-4715 email: jabethke@ucdavis.edu