Hello friends and neighbors.
I wanted to chat here a bit about what we expect from “pesticides” and how they work. So many of my customers don’t always get a full appreciation for how pesticides accomplish the job.
Personally, I break it down to people as there being basically two types of pesticides, poisons and biologicals.
A poison is a toxic chemical that introduces an agent that causes a lethal effect on the biology of the pest in question. Poisons can affect the nervous system, they can affect tissues and organs, etc… in order to cause death in the targeted pest.
A biological is a chemical that does not introduce a poison but instead causes a biological reaction to the product in the targeted pest that leads to their death.
Don’t get too caught up in the word “chemical”. Nearly everything on the planet is technically a chemical.
Poisons can be either a “natural” or a “synthetic” chemical.
A “natural” poison is processed from a natural origin like a plant or a gland from an animal or insect that has lethal properties. Many modern day “scientists” don’t like to use natural poisons as they have less control of the properties of the chemical due to a wide range of influences on the plant, animal or insect the poison is taken from.
A “synthetic” chemical is one that is created in a laboratory environment and every aspect is processed under the most controlled settings so as to provide a consistent result by formulation each and every time.
A synthetic and natural poison can be equally lethal, regardless of the source. Essentially, a poison is a poison is a poison. All of them are designed/intended to cause illness or death.
A biological impacts a creatures natural processes. For example, the presence of a given chemical might cause an arthropod (insect) to “hold it’s breath” until the scent dissipates to a tolerable level or the insect escapes or the insect dies from inability to breathe.
Effectively, the same result has been achieved, death and elimination of the pest but one introduced a toxic chemical into the environment and one introduced a likely non-toxic chemical into the environment.
Not all “natural” or “organic” pesticides are without harmful effect on the environment and/or animals, people and beneficial insects. Just because the words “natural” or organic” are on the label, one should still understand what the effect of the product is, how the product works and the treatment and application methods that are necessary for successful effect.
At BBE-Tech, we prefer to work with “biologicals” and not introduce toxic poisonous chemicals into the environment as often as possible. However, as a licensed profession service provider, we have to be prepared to know and use any number of products and methods to get a given situation “under control”. Sometimes that will include the use pf a toxic poison chemical pesticide.
It is our responsibility to make sure it’s use is limited to only what is actually necessary and to minimize or eliminate the need for such whenever other, less toxic products and methods will be successful either alone or in combination.