New Emerald Ash Borer Treatment

[ATH]

"Safari Insecticide from Valent Professional Products has been granted a special local needs (SLN) label to control emerald ash borer (EAB) in Michigan"...

Link to the rest of the article in Lawn & Landscape

Couple of notes I caught in the article:
*It doesn't sound like we will be able to use it yet outside of MI or OH. Check your own State regulations. (Please let us know what you find) Here is a list of Safari Labels from Valent
*It must be applied in the spring, as where Merit would be applied in the early summer. If infestation is knocking on the door, and I get a call requesting treatment in mid June, I think I will still want Merit 75 in my tool box...
*I am guessing it will stain the bark (nothing the article said, just that penetrating oil tends to do so). But stains are better than death.

 

[tprosser]

Safari for EAB

What the Valent guy didn't say in the article is that it has a significantly shorter residual as compared to Imidicloprid. The reason it goes through the bark so easily is because it is so water soluble. They cannot obtain a soil drench label because of that. Is there any research that is peer reviewed or University based on this that you have seen?

 

[cryo stops wear]

safari for eab

Tom I believe Michigan State did the testing with Safari and Pentra Bark. I heard near 100% kill and it travels through tree very quick. That would be great if pressure or infestation is high.
No it doesnt have a long residual but if you need a quick kill while your waiting for merit to move it should work very well.

Doesnt Safari have a basal drench label ?

 

[tprosser]

Eab

That would be awesome. Who is doing the research?

 

[ATH]

The Safari label reads:
"Application can be made by foliar sprays or soil applications, including drenches and broadcast foliar sprays."

I wonder if it is not as effective in soil drench, or if uptake is just slower than basal bark treatment - so they are pushing the bark treatments??

As for the residual of Safari, I am not familiar with the product to say either way, so I'll take your word for it, tprosser. I wonder if the residual is too short to work for yearly treatments? (in other words will the insecticidal property wear our before the late beetles lay their eggs?) One of the things I keep hearing about imidicloprid is how it builds the ppm count up year after year. So while Safari has a better initial kill, only time (through research) will tell if it will have the same long-term efficacy as Merit...

I'm sure there has been some university research done, or it would not have been granted a label...right?

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Landscape managemnt magazine has an article with a little more info.

http://www.landscapemanagement.net/landscape/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=416955

There was mention of a Flint Journal article on using a park for testing, it had a dead link though

From a 2003 pubCONTROL OF EMERALD ASH BORER: DIRECT TRUNK INJECTION
TECHNOLOGIES
Phillip A. Lewis
USDA APHIS-PPQ CPHST Otis Pest Survey Pest Survey,
Detection and Exclusion Laboratory,

For this reason, the ALB injector was utilized to test several insecticides for efficacy against the emerald ash borer (EAB). Dinotefuran (a neonicotinal) and the Imicide formulation of imidacloprid were equally effective, both showing significantly higher larval mortality than control trees. A small laboratory assay that looked at adult mortality tested foliar sprays of Merit, Tempo, and Sevin (maximum label rates), as well as ash sprigs, allowed to absorb solutions of 1, 5, 10, and 50 ppm imidacloprid. All treatments were effective in killing adult EAB.

There were 14 hits in this search, the above snip included.
http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/s...-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/417/top/-/-/1/0

I did not have time to fiddle with multiple searches from gleanings in this search.

So far I could not find any articles referring actual published papers, just repeated mention of university work, not any specific school.

Maybe someone else can play with the search til I get a chance to come back to it.

 

[tprosser]

Bark spray

Oh -If they are using pentrabark I take back my awesome rating.
Adding this strong solvent/ surfactant will bleach out the bark, kill grass and leaves if oversprayed.


I wonder if any nonionic surfactant will help with bark absorption. I am looking forward to having a conversation with the researcher to find out exactly what they studied and what the controls were.

We found that highly systemic materials moved through the bark without this stuff and if the product did not contain those systemic properties, little or none went through even with the pentrabark. Their claim that it "opens the lenticils" is scientifically ridiculous.

After spending a whole summer working with this stuff on numerous products I believe the company marketing it, is overstating it's value. We know that it has a large amount of nonionic surfactant in it along with other "mystery compounds" which I believe is a strong solvent such as Xylene. See my other post in the tree injections thread for a summary of what we found. http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=44052

I still have hope for dinotefuron though, it looks very cool.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Dinotefuran is a broad-spectrum insecticide, which is proposed for food vegetables (except Brassica) (group 4), and for use in professional turf management, professional ornamental production, and in the residential indoor, pet, lawn and Dinotefuran is a neonicotinoid in the nitroguanidine sub-class, same as another clothianidin. Chemical exceeds all the thresholds for leaching criteria under 333 CMR 12.00
(EPA Factsheet)

Here is a reason it will not be allowed as a soil drench

Here is an interesting piece
Resistance to neonicotinoid insecticides in Colorado potato beetle is increasing Ed Grafius Entomology

Imidacloprid (Admire, Bayer CropScience) and thiamethoxam (Platinum, Cruiser, Syngenta Crop Protection) are critical insecticides for control of Colorado potato beetle in the Northeast and Midwest. These two neonicotinoid insecticides are used on 60 to 80 percent of the potatoes from Maine to North Dakota, mainly for control of Colorado potato beetle and green peach aphid. Unfortunately, Colorado potato beetles are developing resistance to both compounds, creating concerns about the future use of these products and other neonicotinoid insecticides, such as acetamiprid (Assail, Cerexagri, registered in 2005) and dinotefuran (Venom, Valent Corp., registration pending).

Resistance to imidacloprid in Colorado potato beetles first appeared on Long Island, New York in 1997 and is now present in Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Resistance to imidacloprid appeared in Michigan in 2004 for the first time (See Figure 1A with **) and appeared again in Michigan in 2005 (See Figure 1B with **). Of concern is that most potato beetle populations tested in 2005 had LD50 values (dose lethal to 50% of the beetles) for imidacloprid that were significantly higher than the LD50 value for the susceptible potato beetle strain, although differences were less than 10 fold, compared to the susceptible strain (See Figure 1B, bars with *). The apparent change in the number of these sites between 2004 and 2005 suggests that imidacloprid resistance problems may increase in the future.

Here is the FIFRA 24(c) lable for Safari, I did not see it in the other links and it does call for 3:12 oz of pentabark to Safari per gallon.
http://www.cdms.net/ldat/ld6SM007.pdf

 

[cryo stops wear]

ohio ok`s pentra bark and safari as trunk spray

Ohio ok on use of safari and pentra bark for control of EAB.
Should be quick kill in trees without to much vascular damage. I think it would be easier to spray than do soil drench, but it will burn nearby plants and turf.

I found if you spray nearby plants and turf with h20 before and after the application they do not burn.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I emailed Valent and ISA for more info on the study

 

[Urban Forester]

...Who is doing the research?

I believe it's Dave Smitley @ MSU

 

[DavidCappaert]

Safari for EAB

A few comments on this thread. My interest: I'm one of those doing fieldwork on Safari at MSU.

The lead investigators studying Safari in 2006 and 2007 are Deb McCullough (MSU) and Therese Poland (USFS). Dave Smitley is not working with the bark-penetrant formulation as far as I know.

About application timing: based on our trials, Safari will be translocated MORE quickly to foliage than a Merit soil drench. Optimal timing for soil drench is probably mid-spring, and later for Safari. In my opinion, a mid-June soil drench would not control EAB.

In 2006 trials, the Dinotefuron/Pentra treatment was examined in several locations. On average, larval control was nowhere near 100%. We're hoping to improve control with modifications in 2007.

I encourage caution when claims are made about the long-term residual of Merit--that imidacloprid concentration will build up over multiple year applications. I don't think there are data that support that.

About Pentra bark. We have not observed the bark bleaching, or foliage damage that were suggested in a post. Howver the idea that Pentra or other surfactant may not enhance the Safari application is plausible, is being examined.

About the quoted article on neonicotinoid resistance: In my opinion the possibility of resistance for a pest like EAB is low. For Colorado potato beetle, a very large proportion of the population is exposed to any popular insecticide, and selection for resistance is very strong. For EAB, there will be a huge reservoir of susceptible beetles among the millions of non-landscape ash.

In general: Having been involved in EAB pesticide trials since we first became aware of this pest, my strong sense is that there is no treatment that will reliably save most trees in most situations. In some trials in some years, certain techniques will kill up to 80 or 90% of larvae. But we have scant data on what this means in terms of long-term survival of treated trees. We really wish we'd had few year's lead time to get the research done and the techniques perfected!

David Cappaert
[email protected]

 

[046]

DavidC, welcome to AS and thanks for your comments...

 

[treevet]

A few comments on this thread. My interest: I'm one of those doing fieldwork on Safari at MSU.

The lead investigators studying Safari in 2006 and 2007 are Deb McCullough (MSU) and Therese Poland (USFS). Dave Smitley is not working with the bark-penetrant formulation as far as I know.

About application timing: based on our trials, Safari will be translocated MORE quickly to foliage than a Merit soil drench. Optimal timing for soil drench is probably mid-spring, and later for Safari. In my opinion, a mid-June soil drench would not control EAB.

In 2006 trials, the Dinotefuron/Pentra treatment was examined in several locations. On average, larval control was nowhere near 100%. We're hoping to improve control with modifications in 2007.

I encourage caution when claims are made about the long-term residual of Merit--that imidacloprid concentration will build up over multiple year applications. I don't think there are data that support that.

About Pentra bark. We have not observed the bark bleaching, or foliage damage that were suggested in a post. Howver the idea that Pentra or other surfactant may not enhance the Safari application is plausible, is being examined.

About the quoted article on neonicotinoid resistance: In my opinion the possibility of resistance for a pest like EAB is low. For Colorado potato beetle, a very large proportion of the population is exposed to any popular insecticide, and selection for resistance is very strong. For EAB, there will be a huge reservoir of susceptible beetles among the millions of non-landscape ash.

In general: Having been involved in EAB pesticide trials since we first became aware of this pest, my strong sense is that there is no treatment that will reliably save most trees in most situations. In some trials in some years, certain techniques will kill up to 80 or 90% of larvae. But we have scant data on what this means in terms of long-term survival of treated trees. We really wish we'd had few year's lead time to get the research done and the techniques perfected!

David Cappaert
[email protected]

This the most informative and current post (for me) that I have ever read anywhere, anytime. Thanks also.

In a recent conversation w Dan Hermes, Ohio State EAB researcher, he also told me that there is no evidence of any residual building up and lasting into the next spring w any of these applications.