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The emerging trend in pest management, whether insects or weeds, is to reduce or eliminate the use of chemical pesticides. As more and more laws are passed to limit, ban or reduce pesticide use, the landscape contractor needs to understand this trend and adapt to different methods of pest management.
Even though chemical pesticides have played a major role in the maintenance of parks and playgrounds, this era may be coming to a close. There are a host of laws and ordinances that are driving the trend away from chemical pesticide use on public lands.
In 2010, New York Governor Patterson signed the Child Safe Playing Field Act into law. The law requires that all schools, preschools, and day-care centers, both public and private, stop using pesticides on any playgrounds or playing fields. Many local schools such as the Three Village Central School District, Smithtown and Bayport-Blue Point have already done away with harmful pesticides.
Connecticut was the first state to enact a ban on chemical pesticides on public and private schools that have children in eighth grade or lower. Landscape contractors will no longer be able to use pesticides on their grass or playing fields, so says the new state law that took effect July 1, 2010. The law expanded the prohibition of pesticides on school grounds to the playing fields. The law, however, does allow pesticide use to eliminate ''an immediate threat to human health.''
Some state school districts didn't wait for the law to implement a no pesticide policy. Newtown School Superintendent Janet Robinson told newstime.com that her district has been free of pesticides for about three years. ''We knew it was inevitable,'' she said. Before the new law, the school districts were required to keep a list of students whose parents wanted notification whenever a pesticide was used on school grounds.
Connecticut Department of Education spokesman Thomas Murphy said there are alternatives to pesticide use, and that ''all sectors are moving in that direction.'' According to ICT Organics' Bill Skerett, ''The City of Greenwich, uses several of ICT Organics products, including fungicide (NPP), pesticide (Essential-1) and Gluten-8, which is liquid corn gluten meal.''
In San Francisco, city contractors who apply pesticides to City property (must) eliminate or reduce pesticide applications on City property to the maximum extent feasible. In Santa Barbara, the city promotes ''the use of non-hazardous and/or reduced risk alternatives that are protective of human health and the environment.''
In Santa Fe, Ordinance # 2001-10 reads (in part), ''it shall be the policy of the city of Santa Fe to eliminate or reduce pesticide applications on city property to the maximum extent feasible.''
In Wichita, the ordinance states that, ''In order to preserve our natural and economic resources, the City of Wichita will maximize use of native species and minimize use of pesticides and herbicides?EUR??,,????'?????<
Legislation is pending at the federal level as well. The School Environment Protection Act of 2009 (SEPA) has been introduced by Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey's 12th District. The legislation would ban the use of synthetic fertilizers.
Like many aspects of the law, in the absence of a national policy, laws and regulations vary from state to state. Pesticide licensing is different in every state. In New York, the landscape contractor does not have to be licensed to spray minimum risk pesticides, but just across the border in New Jersey, they do. In most states if the contractor claims they are killing something they have to be licensed, but if they claim to be ''managing something,'' no license is required.
The effect on landscape contractors has not been as bad as one might think. According to Bob Hefferman from the Connecticut Nursery and Landscaping Association, Connecticut landscape contractors had about five years to get ready for this, and as a result they were prepared for it. He said that association seminars on organic lawn care are always packed, and that he has not heard significant complaints from the association's membership about the issue. But not all contractors are happy about the situation. ''I have been getting a lot of inquiries and a certain amount of frustration,'' said Bradford Robinson, pesticide program supervisor for the state Department of Environmental Protection. One grounds manager called him recently to ask him how to get rid of the billbugs destroying a new field. ''I told him he had to reseed and start over,'' he said. But, Robinson added, ''there is a lot you can do to prevent certain problems'' by using organic lawn care methods.
Among the alternatives are: Integrated pest management and bio-pesticides. Biopesticides are pesticides derived from natural materials such as animals, plants, bacteria, and certain minerals. For example, canola oil and baking soda have pesticide applications and are considered biopesticides.
One preventive and curative fungicide that can be applied to turf sites controls dollar spot, brown patch, anthracnose, red thread, pink patch, leaf spot, gray leaf spot, rust, snowmold, fusarium patch, southern blight, summer patch, pythium blight, fairy ring and take-all patch. Its active ingredients are cinnamon oil and potassium sorbate, and includes inert ingredients such organic vinegar, hydrolyzed amino acids, processed crustacea and water.
ICT Organics' Essential-1 PHE provides rapid knockdown/kill and protection for a number of parks and playground applications. It takes care of ants, armyworms, billbugs, chinch bugs, chiggers, crickets, cutworms, earwigs, fleas, grasshoppers, hyperodes weevils (adults), Japanese beetles (adults), mole crickets, mosquitoes, sod webworms and ticks. Its active ingredients are Castor oil, cedar oil, citric acid, garlic oil, sodium lauryl sulfate and white pepper.
Traditional pesticide manufacturers are getting into the bio-pesticide business as well. Monsanto Company and AgraQuest, Inc. entered into a collaboration to evaluate the potential use of AgraQuest's bio-pesticides. Effective pest management using non-chemicals is more an educational process, than a serious setback for park maintenance professionals.
According to Bill Skerrett of ICT Organics, ''EPA uses the term ?EUR??,,????'?????<
As chemical pesticide use is being legislated against, it behooves the landscape contractor to investigate the alternatives to pest management and lawn care so they are not caught off guard.
For more information about biopesticides, the US Environmental Protection Agency has dedicated web pages that landscape contractors can read. www.epa.gov/oppbppd1/biopesticides/regtools/25b_list.htm#activeingredients This is a partial list of EPA's approved biopesticide ingredients:
Francisco Uviña, University of New Mexico
Hardscape Oasis in Litchfield Park
Ash Nochian, Ph.D. Landscape Architect
November 12th, 2025
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