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Understanding Organic vs Traditional Pest Control · PEST PROSpectives

• 0:08
  Richard Piet: I'm Richard Piet.
• 0:09
  Richard Piet: This is Pest Perspectives, the official podcast from the Pest Pros of Michigan.
• 0:14
  Richard Piet: Tony Sorentino is an associate certified entomologist, the answer man, as we were saying earlier.
• 0:21
  Richard Piet: And he's back with us to talk a little bit about organics and other more traditional types of pesticides and giving us some distinction between the two.
• 0:33
  Richard Piet: Hi, Tony.
• 0:34
  Tony Sorrentino: Hey Richard, how are you?
• 0:35
  Tony Sorrentino: It's great to see you again.
• 0:36
  Richard Piet: Good to see you.
• 0:36
  Richard Piet: Thanks for this.
• 0:38
  Richard Piet: You know, people do hear words like organic, green, and natural.
• 0:43
  Richard Piet: They might even hear something called 25B.
• 0:47
  Richard Piet: What does this all mean?
• 0:48
  Tony Sorrentino: It's super common.
• 0:50
  Tony Sorrentino: Um, they're buzzerwords right now because everybody's really concerned about environmental impact of the products that we're applying.
• 0:56
  Richard Piet: Sure.
• 0:57
  Tony Sorrentino: And um they're they're they're not interchangeable.
• 1:00
  Tony Sorrentino: Um, green, organic, um, those can have different meanings depending on on what product it is.
• 1:06
  Tony Sorrentino: And that's really it, it comes down to the label.
• 1:09
  Tony Sorrentino: A 25B product is uh minimum risk.
• 1:13
  Tony Sorrentino: Um, it qualifies for exemption from EPA regulations.
• 1:18
  Tony Sorrentino: EPA doesn't review each exempt product for effectiveness or approve its individual label before sale, but it is still a pesticide.
• 1:26
  Richard Piet: Yeah.
• 1:27
  Richard Piet: And when people are concerned about these kinds of things, the presumption is, right, that organic or natural is uh less uh harmful, maybe, but it doesn't mean harmless.
• 1:42
  Richard Piet: Is that right?
• 1:43
  Tony Sorrentino: Right.
• 1:43
  Tony Sorrentino: Natural doesn't mean risk-free.
• 1:46
  Tony Sorrentino: Um uh in nature, compounds are produced that can irritate, injure, or kill.
• 1:51
  Tony Sorrentino: Essential oils can affect skin, eyes, um, breathing.
• 1:56
  Tony Sorrentino: Um, and that's target and non-target organisms.
• 2:00
  Tony Sorrentino: So, like people and pets.
• 2:02
  Tony Sorrentino: I've heard nightmare stories where people are, you know, we switched over to a totally green company and um they they treated the inside of their house using essential oils, and it was unbearable for the pets and people that lived in there because of this the strong smell of the essential oils.
• 2:19
  Tony Sorrentino: Oh man.
• 2:21
  Richard Piet: Yeah.
• 2:21
  Richard Piet: So these are things that uh probably come into play when you're assessing a situation and you're trying to understand what the best approach is.
• 2:32
  Richard Piet: So I presume integrated pest management then becomes the guiding force, right?
• 2:38
  Tony Sorrentino: Now you're talking my language.
• 2:40
  Tony Sorrentino: Um IPM is the foundation.
• 2:42
  Tony Sorrentino: It's the foundation of everything we do.
• 2:44
  Tony Sorrentino: Um, we take an integrated approach to what we're seeing, why we're seeing it.
• 2:50
  Tony Sorrentino: The first order of business in almost every scenario is figuring out why the pests are there.
• 2:57
  Tony Sorrentino: What there's a reason, there's there's an underlying mitigating factor that is directly related to the presence or lack of presence for the insects that we're trying to control.
• 3:09
  Tony Sorrentino: We identify the pest, we inspect and find the source, address food, water, shelter, and access through sanitation, moisture correction, uh, exclusion, and habitat modification.
• 3:21
  Tony Sorrentino: We use various uh techniques and methods to um like like steaming, or we use HEPA vacuums, we use trapping and monitoring to figure out what's going on, why it's there, and how do we make it stop?
• 3:34
  Tony Sorrentino: Pesticide is only one tool of the program.
• 3:36
  Tony Sorrentino: It's not the entire program.
• 3:38
  Richard Piet: So a lot of botanical products are repellents, right?
• 3:42
  Richard Piet: Is that always helpful?
• 3:43
  Tony Sorrentino: Depending on what you're trying to control, you could inflame a situation, aggravate it, or potentially make it worse by utilizing green products, especially like with ants.
• 3:55
  Tony Sorrentino: The difference between repellent and non-repellent products is that the repellent products, there's a noticeable change when the insects come in touch with it, whether it's a tingle or if something immediately starts happening, um, you know, insects start dying and then it causes an alarm throughout the rest of the colony.
• 4:15
  Tony Sorrentino: So specifically in ants, it could cause the the brood to break off and create a satellite colony or and then you know it's it's spreading, it's still in the house.
• 4:27
  Tony Sorrentino: It's in different areas of the house now because we got them over here, but they moved over there, and now we can't get to them.
• 4:34
  Richard Piet: Yeah, it's not solving the problem.
• 4:35
  Richard Piet: So give us a few examples of reduced impact tools that pest pros like you can use.
• 4:43
  Tony Sorrentino: We use products like Egovia and NatureSide.
• 4:46
  Tony Sorrentino: Um, they they use essential oils that are 25B botanicals.
• 4:49
  Tony Sorrentino: Some of the other ones that that are that are really prevalent for wood-destroying insects and cockroach control specifically are like uh boricare.
• 5:00
  Tony Sorrentino: The borate-based pesticides are digestive tracts, so they have to be ingested, whether um it's through grooming, like when cockroaches where restaurants with high-level infestations will mop the floor with a borate solution.
• 5:13
  Tony Sorrentino: So as the cockroaches move across it, um, they're picking up that product from the floor and then they ingest it through grooming, and it effectively takes them out.
• 5:24
  Richard Piet: It's interesting because if 25B stuff and some organic stuff are considered minimum risk, then uh you have a sense that um maybe it might not be as effective.
• 5:39
  Richard Piet: Uh is that pretty common?
• 5:41
  Tony Sorrentino: So it's not that it's not as effective.
• 5:43
  Tony Sorrentino: It doesn't persist as long in the environment.
• 5:46
  Tony Sorrentino: I see.
• 5:46
  Tony Sorrentino: Where some of the traditional products that we use for for uh structure-invading insect control can last up to 90 days in the environment through micro polymicroencapsulated um formulations and different application and treatment methods.
• 6:05
  Tony Sorrentino: The organics, the 25 Bs, they don't persist as long.
• 6:09
  Tony Sorrentino: So where um we would treat once a month the yard for mosquitoes, but if we're using organics or 25 bees, we got to come back every two weeks.
• 6:20
  Tony Sorrentino: So it's it's an increased application rate.
• 6:22
  Tony Sorrentino: It may it may require more understanding on the homeowner's part too, because we're not gonna have as high a level of efficacy with a 25B.
• 6:31
  Tony Sorrentino: And that's that's my experience.
• 6:32
  Tony Sorrentino: I know people live in and and love their 25Bs and they love their organics.
• 6:38
  Tony Sorrentino: Um, I'm a traditional pesticide guy, and I I um I stand behind the effectiveness when um standard pesticides are applied by label and by law.
• 6:49
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah.
• 6:50
  Richard Piet: This is part of what you talk about with homeowners, I presume, right?
• 6:55
  Richard Piet: The uh difference between the two and give them the options that they have.
• 7:01
  Tony Sorrentino: Absolutely.
• 7:02
  Tony Sorrentino: We have we have clients that that, you know, they're adamant, they stand on that, and uh it's it's education.
• 7:10
  Tony Sorrentino: Like this is this is what we'll use.
• 7:13
  Tony Sorrentino: This is what we're gonna have to do because of that.
• 7:16
  Tony Sorrentino: Like we're gonna have to be here every month or every other month where we have a quarterly rotation for general household pests.
• 7:23
  Richard Piet: Got it.
• 7:23
  Richard Piet: Let's just be clear then.
• 7:25
  Richard Piet: What should homeowners ask when someone sells them a natural, organic, or green pest control service?
• 7:33
  Tony Sorrentino: Knowledge is power.
• 7:34
  Tony Sorrentino: Like, what products are you gonna be using?
• 7:36
  Tony Sorrentino: Are they certified organic?
• 7:37
  Tony Sorrentino: We have a a couple of manufacturing facilities that we do in their organic plants.
• 7:43
  Tony Sorrentino: And so we have a strict IPM program there, and we can only apply organic products if we have to apply organic products.
• 7:50
  Tony Sorrentino: It's uh it's all sticky boards and fly lights.
• 7:54
  Tony Sorrentino: And uh we have achieved control for the past two years there.
• 7:58
  Tony Sorrentino: They haven't had any issues.
• 7:59
  Tony Sorrentino: I guess I would most be looking for transparency.
• 8:03
  Tony Sorrentino: I want it targeted, transparent, responsible, and effective.
• 8:07
  Richard Piet: So if there's one thing you want folks to remember about 25B and organic pest control, what is it?
• 8:14
  Tony Sorrentino: Be patient.
• 8:15
  Tony Sorrentino: I would be patient because it takes time.
• 8:18
  Tony Sorrentino: You know, it's it's uh instant gratification.
• 8:21
  Tony Sorrentino: We want it done and we wanted it done yesterday.
• 8:24
  Tony Sorrentino: Um with with uh any pest management program, have a little patience.
• 8:29
  Richard Piet: Yeah.
• 8:29
  Richard Piet: If you're gonna be organic too, then as you say, it may take uh more frequent visits or more visits in order to accomplish what you want to accomplish.
• 8:38
  Richard Piet: Certainly, though, these are the questions and things about which you can be concerned directly with your pest control expert because uh they're gonna tell you how it is, and they know.
• 8:51
  Richard Piet: Folks like Tony, who are ACEs, associate certified entomologists, they know these things and they can talk about that.
• 8:59
  Richard Piet: If this is the first episode of Pest Perspectives, by the way, that you've come across, we touched on a couple of things that are foundational in some of the conversations that we've talked about, like IPM, integrated pest management.
• 9:12
  Richard Piet: Invite you to subscribe to the podcast and go back and check out that episode about IPM, and you'll understand that foundation.
• 9:20
  Richard Piet: And in two care, you heard Tony talk about that system.
• 9:23
  Richard Piet: We talked about that just a few episodes ago.
• 9:25
  Richard Piet: So have a listen there and reach out.
• 9:28
  Richard Piet: Contact information in the show notes.
• 9:30
  Richard Piet: If you want to quiz Tony yourself about these things and others, he and the team at Pest Pros of Michigan are ready to answer your questions and relate them to your specific situation.
• 9:44
  Richard Piet: All right, Tony.
• 9:44
  Richard Piet: We'll be back again soon.
• 9:46
  Tony Sorrentino: Thanks, Richard.
• 9:47
  Tony Sorrentino: Have a great week.
• 9:48
  Richard Piet: Tony Sorentino with the Pest Pros of Michigan here on Pest Perspectives.