Rational Environmental Solutions Tree

Pest Solutions

Bugs And Weeds,

Lawns To LakesTM

Pesticide Types:

Some basic pesticide information:

TEXPEST, Pest Control From Rational Environmental Solutions (903) 216-1408 etexbiz@gmail.com

There are three common signal words on pesticide labels: Caution, Warning, and Danger.

Caution: Is the least dangerous signal word.

Warning: Is the mid level pesticide signal word.

Danger: Is the most dangerous level of the three common signal words.

Now, try this: Go to your laundry room or look under your kitchen sink, and look at the labels on your household cleaners and other products. You will be surprised! Among other chemicals in your home, your kitchen cabinet, or pantry has one of the most dangerous, salt! Common table salt, or sodium chloride has a lower LDL 50 than most pesticides. What is an LDL 50? It is the way those signal words are applied to the labels. It stands for, Lethal Dose Level 50, or the level of exposure at which 50% of the test subjects died. The lower the LDL 50, the more dangerous the substance.

Pesticides, can be classified in categories, according to their intended use:

Herbicides :

Pre emergent chemicals, as the name implies, are applied before the plants emerge from the ground. Most work by providing a barrier in the soil which prevents the plant from coming through.

Post emergent, of course, works by destroying the plant after it has begun to grow. Post emergent have several classes:

Contact: Which kills the top of the plant on contact.

Systemic: Which works from the top to the root of the plant.

Selective: Which works on one type of plant, but does not kill others.

Non Selective: Kills all vegetation it comes in contact with.

Insecticides:

Most insecticides Work on the central nervous systems of the pest, although one class works as a growth regulator.

Rodenticides:

As the name implies, these are the chemicals used in the control of rodents.

PGR's

There is one other class that should be mentioned. While they are not chemicals for killing pests, they are in fairly common use on lawns and shrubs.They are; PGR's. PGR stands; for preventative growth regulator, a class of chemicals which slow the growth rate of plants, and add another tool to our box.

Fertilizers:

Most people don't think of fertilizers in the same way that they think of pesticides, but they are chemicals. There will normally be 3 numbers, such as: 21-7-14. This is simply the percentage of each of the 3 key ingredients. The first number is nitrogen. In our example, it is 21 percent, which means that in a quantity of one hundred pounds of the product there would be 21 pounds of nitrogen. The second number is phosphorus. The third is potassium. The nitrogen in the product may be one of several forms, ammoniacal, and urea formaldehyde are two that come to mind. The nitrogen is needed by the plant to produce leaf growth and chlorophyll. The phosphorus helps to produce roots and blooms, and the potassium helps the plant with heat and cold tolerance. This is a little over simplified, since they all act in conjunction, but it makes the point. Phosphorus use, should concern us for several reasons. It is one of the problems we have with maintaining clean drinking water if it is over used. It also can cause chlorosis, or yellowing in plants, if it exists in sufficient quantities to "tie up" the available iron in the soil.

Chemical Safety:

Most of our modern chemicals are safer to use than ever. They are applied in lower doses, with less collateral damage, when used properly, following the label directions. In many cases the use of chemical treatments may be the most environmentally friendly option for dealing with pest problems.

This list is not complete, and will be updated from time to time.

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