Pest Control: Landscape Applications: Ethics, What Ethics?

Once again, I have been saddled with an invoice for work that will not in the least bit benefit our client. Somebody at the office I work at scheduled a plant growth regulator (PGR) injection for a cherry tree today - November 11th.

I suppose an explanation is in order. After all, if my office is largely ignorant of what treatments are appropriate when, I can hardly expect you, my loyal reader(s), to have any idea of what I am talking about. Sadly, this ignorance is precisely why so many landscape spray companies make money without doing their clients the least bit of good. Take today, for example. This client is bothered by the fruit that comes off of her tree and litters her lawn. A PGR (plant growth regulator) can dramatically reduce the amount of fruit, and flowering, that this tree puts out in the future - provided the timing of the application is correct. The PGR is best applied in the late summer and early spring in the first year (it is too late to do much of anything if a customer calls late in the spring, which is often the case, due to the way the plant growth regulator works). The label instructions call for the application of the PGR as a direct injection to the cambium tissue of the tree no later than thirty days prior to the first frost. It is now nearly six weeks after the first frost, virtually all the leaves have turned and fallen off with the approach of winter, and the tree is experiencing very little vascular activity.

What good do you think this injection might do? You are correct: none. But the order has come from on high - "Cash is King!" So we perform applications, whether necessary, beneficial, ethical or otherwise, in order to offset the inability of my employer to save money during the busy season. A surplus saved might earn interest in the interim, and ensure some stability and stave off the temptation to make unethical recommendations to customers in order to save a buck, but then, it is so much fun to spend it when the bank accounts are bulging, isn't it? So, my dear and loyal reader(s), buyer beware. Do some research to confirm what your hired gun is telling you - you might save yourself a bundle.