Why Lab Testing (and Retesting) Is So Crucial to Your Pest Control Products
When you hoist a backpack sprayer onto your shoulders to begin treating a client's home or business, it's nice knowing hundreds of people stand behind the products you're using. King Nelson, Ph.D., the chemist on the Formulation Development team at Syngenta who is pictured above, is one of your biggest supporters.
Nelson works with new and existing pest control formulations at Syngenta every day. He says these formulations are like jigsaw puzzles. Active ingredients (AIs) are the pieces that do the work, while surfactants are the pieces that support and enhance the AIs. Both are vital to ensure a pest control product is not only effective. It also lasts a long time.
Nelson works hard to ensure that formulations get results no matter what kind of heat or cold they're exposed to. As previously covered, he has no shortage of tools to use. Among Syngenta's large network of labs at its U.S. headquarters in Greensboro, N.C., is a room full of freezers and ovens -- including massive walk-in models like the one pictured below -- where vials of formulations are monitored, often for months, to see how they respond. The facility even has a machine simulating bumpy rides in the back of a semi truck to test the impact of turbulence on formulations. These tests leave no room for doubt.
"Whatever condition we're testing for, we exceed that by a lot," says Nelson.
If a formulation doesn't meet Nelson's standards, he and the rest of the formulations team rely on their vast amount of collective experience to find a solution.
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“We learn a lot from our previous work, like how certain active ingredients behave,” says Nelson. “Plus, we’re always looking at new chemistries. Even if they don’t work today, we know they may work in our system tomorrow. We like to keep our toolbox full.”?
No formulation reaches the marketplace until it has passed every single test multiple times. So even if you left your supplies in your truck for a week in the searing summer heat, you can rest assure that those sprays, gels and dry flowable bait will still get the job done.
Testing our products ensures a life uninterrupted by pests, no matter the weather conditions. To continue learning more about our pest control solutions, sign up for a free SyngentaPMP account to gain access to technical expertise, label/SDS updates and more:
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