The Highly Regarded Whitmire Micro-Gen Symposium, held this September in San Antonio, delivered a powerful mix of research findings, field reports, and industry updates.
The 1998 Whitmire Micro-Gen Symposium, held Sept. 20-23 in San Antonio, Texas, was an important opportunity for PCOs to learn about the newest research programs underway at some of the most significant institutions supporting the professional pest control industry.
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| From left, Dr. Phil Koehler, University of Florida, and Dr. Dan Suiter, Purdue University, discuss research findings. |
Also, the symposium was an opportunity for PCOs to meet the company’s new president, Andy Symons, who joined Whitmire Micro-Gen earlier this year. Most recently he was business manager for S.C. Johnson in Australia and New Zealand. Symons, who has 17 years of management experience, earned his bachelor’s degree in law and completed graduate and commercial management training before joining S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. in 1981. During his time with S.C. Johnson, Symons has worked in a number of sales and marketing capacities in Europe, London and Australia in the commercial and consumer sides of the business.
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| WMG’s Andy Symons |
Symons referred to the company’s close partnership with the industry and its strong belief in education as important components to its long-term success. “I think we have a great opportunity for the future,” he told attendees of the symposium. “We will endeavor to be more proactive in our relationship with the industry. We intend to lead.”
More than 200 pest control professionals, from 30 states, Canada, Puerto Rico, the Netherlands and Japan, attended the symposium. Symons predicted the industry would see an even more international marketplace in the years to come. “I think we will be looking to expand our horizons internationally,” Symons told PCT in a recent interview. “I think the opportunities for growth are there for companies that want to take them.”
The director of the symposium, Gary Moneyham, said the goal of the program was to make the symposium the best it has ever been. “We have brought to you the best minds in the industry,” he said, “and they’re going to tell you what’s around the corner.”
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| Attendees of the Whitmire Micro-Gen Symposium heard a healthy share of university research results. |
THE DECADE OF IPM. Dr. Michael F. Potter, entomology professor with the University of Kentucky, kicked off the program with a keynote address focusing on the true meaning of IPM. “The ’90s will go down as the decade of IPM,” he said. “IPM means different things to different people.” In his work, Potter has uncovered more than 64 different definitions of IPM in the recent past. While the debate over IPM has been spirited at times, it appears that debate has remained mainly within the industry. Interestingly, Potter said, the vast majority of customers don’t know what IPM stands for, nor what it means. “The term has no relevance to the customer at all,” he said. According to Potter, the successful pest management programs of the future will be “science-based and customer-driven.” Those PCOs that want to succeed, Potter said, will do so by making customers’ lives easier while at the same time utilizing the newest technology available.
A ROUND OF RESEARCH REPORTS. True to its commitment of bringing cutting-edge research to the industry, the symposium also featured a number of presentations based on current university research programs and reports from pest control companies. About 25 speakers, representing universities, corporations, and consulting organizations, presented reports. Speakers included Dr. Gary Bennett, Dr. John Klotz, Dr. Roger Gold, Dr. Philip Koehler and others. Several research studies from these institutions are discussed below.
Dr. Gary Bennett, Purdue University: A study under Dr. Bennett’s direction is focusing on the nutritional ecology of cockroaches. Preliminary results indicate that cockroaches feed during only a small portion of their lifetimes, such as after they molt. When they do feed, it’s not for long, the study indicates. Cockroaches appear to forage for just a few hours a day: two hours before midnight, and two hours after. Results also indicate that cockroaches that have protein-deficient diets will feed longer on protein-based baits than cockroaches that are not lacking protein in their diets, Bennett said. “Field-collected roaches that are protein-deficient are more likely to go to a high-protein bait,” Bennett said. “They do feed longer on those high-protein baits.”
Dr. Dan Suiter, Purdue University: One of Dr. Suiter’s recent studies focused on foraging behavior of the black carpenter ant. Suiter used electronic dataloggers and proximity sensors to analyze recruitment rates to foods, as well as the influence of various environmental factors, such as light, temperature, and pressure. The results confirmed what researchers already believed: There is almost no foraging activity among carpenter ants in the daytime, but during the evening and early morning hours, carpenter ants forage in large numbers. At the height of the foraging activity, up to 500 ants per hour were counted.
Dr. John Klotz, University of California-Riverside: Dr. Klotz recently studied the Argentine ant to discover why its food preferences often change. Klotz’s team has developed and field-tested a slow-acting liquid ant boric acid bait for use against Argentine ants in the Hunting Beach area of California. The key to success for the bait, Klotz says, is having plenty of bait available. “If a delivery system is developed that has high capacity, it’s the best route to take,” he said. Klotz and his team found that the bait was more effective if the stations were placed around tree trunks in combination with sticky barriers placed around tree trunks. The barriers prevented the ants from accessing their food sources while at the same time directed ants to the baits. “A good way of enhancing bait consumption is to cut off their resources,” Klotz explained. “It’s labor intensive but it provides better control over the long run.” The key to this technique, he added, is using attractants that ants will feed on readily.
Dr. Philip Koehler, University of Florida-Gainesville: A study conducted under Dr. Koehler’s direction analyzed the use of baits and secondary kill of cockroaches due to cannibalization. This study, conducted by Jerry Gahlhoff, showed that when cockroaches feed on another cockroach that has eaten bait, those cockroaches will also die. In the study, nymphs were fed with cockroach baits, then those nymphs were fed to other cockroaches. Several different cockroach baits were studied, Koehler said, and all of them provided some secondary kill due to cannibalization. Koehler points out that from a secondary kill perspective, the best baits are slow-acting, because the cockroaches that feed on them will have enough time to get back to the harborage before they die. “For every one cockroach that feeds on bait,” Koehler said, “you can probably kill 20 other cockroaches.”
More information from the symposium will be published in future issues of PCT.
