Sep 17, 2011 – The More The Merrier
QUESTION:
I wanted to know if mixing these products is a violation. I recently witnessed a tech mixing the following products into a Patriot machine - Pyrocide 100, Exciter, Gentrol, Evercide. I use Gentrol and Exciter but I'm not familiar with the others because I don't use those.
ANSWER:
I think we can distinguish between what is "legal" and what is "logical", and in this case the other person seems to be within the law with his mixtures. The rule of thumb is that you CAN mix products together as long as none of the labels prohibits that mixing, or limits the mixing to some other specific products only. In this case none of these products' labels prohibits mixing, so putting them together in one tank would be legal. Another rule of thumb I once learned was that once you get past 3 different products in the same tank mix you may be asking for trouble, and we could refer to it as a witch's brew. Another consideration is whether or not you begin to exceed to legal concentration of any of the active ingredients by mixing several products together, and in this case both Pyrocide and Exciter are pyrethrums, so by adding the label amount of each to a single tank actually doubles the concentration of the pyrethrum in that tank, and this could be skirting the law.
My initial thought on this is that this person may believe that if one is good then two must be twice as good, and you can kill that bug deader with twice the ingredient. Particularly in this time of serious shortages of natural pyrethrum, to mix two different pyrethrum products in the same tank would seem to be an overuse of the active ingredient. The use of the proper amount of either one is going to achieve what you want from the pyrethrum - flushing or knockdown - and to use excessive amounts could actually create a repellency in the treated area that works against you. You WANT the pest insect to rest on the treated surface to absorb the residual material (the permethrin in the Evercide), but too much pyrethrum could just chase the pest insects away from that area.
Another question is whether or not all of these products can legally be used in a "deep void" injector such as the Patriot, and this seems to be okay. All of them are labeled for use as space sprays, even though they do not specify use in a deep void or wall injector, which is what the Patriot and other such foggers are designed for. I would say that the use of a pyrethrum product to get flushing or knockdown, a residual for the longer control, and an IGR for its purposes is a good combination. In fact, for bed bug control many PMP's have found that pyrethrum added to the spray mix seems to enhance the control effort, and whether it is because of the pyrethrum itself or the synergists in nearly all pyrethrum products is not something I know. In this case the Pyrocide has dual synergists and the Exciter has only PBO, although at a whopping 60% in the concentrate material. Because of the high percentages of pyrethrum and PBO in the Exciter I would be very concerned about mixing this one at the proper label dosage.
So, in my opinion there does not seem to be anything illegal about what this person is doing, but definitely the use of two different pyrethrum products is illogical and perhaps skirts the law because it probably bumps the total amount of that active ingredient above what was really intended for use in a spray mixture.
View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.
I wanted to know if mixing these products is a violation. I recently witnessed a tech mixing the following products into a Patriot machine - Pyrocide 100, Exciter, Gentrol, Evercide. I use Gentrol and Exciter but I'm not familiar with the others because I don't use those.
ANSWER:
I think we can distinguish between what is "legal" and what is "logical", and in this case the other person seems to be within the law with his mixtures. The rule of thumb is that you CAN mix products together as long as none of the labels prohibits that mixing, or limits the mixing to some other specific products only. In this case none of these products' labels prohibits mixing, so putting them together in one tank would be legal. Another rule of thumb I once learned was that once you get past 3 different products in the same tank mix you may be asking for trouble, and we could refer to it as a witch's brew. Another consideration is whether or not you begin to exceed to legal concentration of any of the active ingredients by mixing several products together, and in this case both Pyrocide and Exciter are pyrethrums, so by adding the label amount of each to a single tank actually doubles the concentration of the pyrethrum in that tank, and this could be skirting the law.
My initial thought on this is that this person may believe that if one is good then two must be twice as good, and you can kill that bug deader with twice the ingredient. Particularly in this time of serious shortages of natural pyrethrum, to mix two different pyrethrum products in the same tank would seem to be an overuse of the active ingredient. The use of the proper amount of either one is going to achieve what you want from the pyrethrum - flushing or knockdown - and to use excessive amounts could actually create a repellency in the treated area that works against you. You WANT the pest insect to rest on the treated surface to absorb the residual material (the permethrin in the Evercide), but too much pyrethrum could just chase the pest insects away from that area.
Another question is whether or not all of these products can legally be used in a "deep void" injector such as the Patriot, and this seems to be okay. All of them are labeled for use as space sprays, even though they do not specify use in a deep void or wall injector, which is what the Patriot and other such foggers are designed for. I would say that the use of a pyrethrum product to get flushing or knockdown, a residual for the longer control, and an IGR for its purposes is a good combination. In fact, for bed bug control many PMP's have found that pyrethrum added to the spray mix seems to enhance the control effort, and whether it is because of the pyrethrum itself or the synergists in nearly all pyrethrum products is not something I know. In this case the Pyrocide has dual synergists and the Exciter has only PBO, although at a whopping 60% in the concentrate material. Because of the high percentages of pyrethrum and PBO in the Exciter I would be very concerned about mixing this one at the proper label dosage.
So, in my opinion there does not seem to be anything illegal about what this person is doing, but definitely the use of two different pyrethrum products is illogical and perhaps skirts the law because it probably bumps the total amount of that active ingredient above what was really intended for use in a spray mixture.
View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.
