Sundew Solutions is offering two new products to tackle ant problems.
“Sugar, oil, protein or carbohydrate feeding ants – it doesn’t matter anymore. Antagonist Pro and SAS Pro control the lot,” remarked David Priddy, owner of Sundew Solutions.
“Antagonist Pro has been developed from the ground up. It is totally unique. Nothing on the Australian market compares or even comes close to it. This is a ‘game changer’ for the control of ants by pest management professionals.”
Antagonist Pro has been developed as a surface treatment specifically for the control of ants. It has been designed to overcome the difficulties experienced by current surface treatments when working in Australia’s harsh outdoor environment. Variations in pH, organic content, UV breakdown, wash-off, heat and repellency have contributed to ant control being very limited by current spray and bait applications.
“I have a large resort which has had a big population of white-footed ant,” explained Jay Turner from Laguna Pest Control at Noosa in Queensland. “There was one trail that was six ants wide and 20 metres long which I treated with Antagonist Pro. Seven months later there are still no ants
in the area I treated. I’ve tried other non-repellent ant products and found after rain they only last a couple of months at best. Antagonist Pro is really promising at seven months after spraying – I’m sold on this innovative new product,” said Mr Turner.
“Ants in Townsville are a year round problem and I was keen to give something new a go which sounded like it might be suited to the conditions here,” said Eric Dibden from Pod’s Pest Control in Townsville. “With heavy rain in the wet season and high UV levels all year, an ant product has to be pretty good to work here.
“I tried Antagonist Pro at a couple of problem sites – the sort of places you expect to have a recall. There are so many different types of ants here and so much pressure that baits just can’t cut it a lot of the time. I treated ant trails and around the perimeter of the houses.
“There’s been some extreme weather in the meantime, but I haven’t had to go back to a single Antagonist Pro job. It looks like it’s well suited to these extreme Townsville conditions,” concluded Mr Dibden.
While Antagonist Pro has been developed specifically as an ant control product, feedback from pest managers has indicated that this product is also excellent on ground dwelling spiders, cockroaches and fleas. Additional registrations will come through shortly.
The second new innovative tool from Sundew in the fight against ants is SAS Pro (an acronym for Sundew Ant Silica), a fipronil coated high quality gradedquartz carrier. This is the first fipronilgranule available to professional pest managers in Australia.
“We’ve done hundreds of trials on various insecticide actives on granules for the treatment of ants across Australia and overseas. Traditional repellent granules (bifenthrin) do nothing other than push ants to another area, not resolving the pest issue,” explained Mr Priddy.
“Our field work soon showed the new fipronil based SAS Pro decimated treated ant populations.”
SAS Pro has label claims for funnel ants in commercial turf situations, golf courses, bowling greens and sports fields as well as nuisance ants in lawns, gardens, between pavers and potted plants, etc.
“As part of a total ant eradication solution we are recommending that Antagonist Pro be applied as a perimeter spray and treatment to walls, concrete, paths, driveways, trees and other hard surfaces. SAS Pro is perfect for application to lawns, garden beds, potted plants, between pavers, around shrubs, ant trails and nests.”
While these two new products allow pest managers to offer guarantees with confidence, Sundew is not resting. “We’ve got exciting new products coming early in 2015 which will excite the industry,” said Mr Priddy.
