Weeds don’t always have to be seen before they’re eliminated. A comprehensive preemergent herbicide program can destroy crabgrass and some broadleaf weeds before they meet the customer’s eye. Lawn care operators (LCOs) usually develop these programs based on regional climate, experience and customer demand.
And by being attuned to weather patterns, product developments and application procedures, many LCOs are discovering high success rates with their programs, resulting in less use of postemergent controls later in the year and happier customers. “To me, going with a postemergent service means you have to spray something when it’s 100 degrees outside, so you can’t spray a lot,” says Todd Graus, president, Green Turf Lawnscapes, Worland, Wyo. The opportunity to make money on a postemergent service isn’t there, and any company worth their weight isn’t going to allow their company to have these problems in the first place.”
| PICKING PREEMERGENTS |
Manufacturer patents are beginning to expire on preemergent herbicides, meaning lawn care operators (LCOs) can expect more product options in the near future. With such a variety available, LCOs will have more factors to consider when purchasing preemergents. Generic products are expected to lower product price but may also result in less customer-service support, says Ben Cicora, business manager, herbicides, Bayer Environmental Science, Montvale, N.J. “If there is a breakthrough come July or August, it’s going to be hard to contact somebody whereas if you’re going with the original-branded manufacturer you’re more apt to get some service and support – with your business and the products you use,” Cicora says. Jon Cundiff, president of Lee’s Summit, Mo.-based Weed Man, agrees that LCOs need to look at quality in addition to price when considering preemergent products. “We want a product that does the best job, and that’s when you have to tap into suppliers and go to universities and do your homework,” he says. Cundiff suggests LCOs consider application timing, days of control, leeching potential, efficacy rates and necessary irrigation levels when shopping for preemergent products. “Do you need 150 days of control?” Cundiff says. “If so, what product gives you the best opportunity to do that? And, if it does, what’s the cost? Then you can weigh that out with the bottom line.” Todd Graus, president of Worland, Wyo.-based Green Turf Lawnscapes, says when judging product quality he considers several factors before making a switch. “I think one of the biggest challenges is being tempted to move to different preemergents because the marketing looks nice,” he says. “I have essentially used the same preemergent for 20 years, and some years I see better results than others.” Variations in efficacy from one year to the next often result from environmental changes rather than product failures, Graus says. “It could have been the applicator or how people watered – there’s a lot of things that come into play.” Green Turf Lawnscapes has been achieving 98 percent control with one of the lowest-priced preemergent products on the market, according to Graus. “It’s not worth paying extra money for the extra 2 percent,” Graus says. “If I have 2 percent breakthrough, that means I have 20 lawns that I have a problem with, and they’re probably lawns we knew we were going to have problems with in the first place, so the client was informed. Otherwise, we can go in there and do a postemergent control of those 20 lawns, and the client won’t even know we were there.” Even if preemergent prices lower or remain constant, LCOs who combine their preemergents with fertilizer could still be forced to raise prices because of rising fertilizer costs, according to Gary LaScalea, owner, GroGreen, Plano, Texas. “Some of our fertilizer costs have doubled in the last few years,” he says. |
PERFECT TIMING. Green Turf Lawnscapes usually applies its preemergent herbicides in the spring but exactly when can vary depending on soil temperatures. When controlling crabgrass, Graus tries to hit the seeds before the soil temperature reaches 50 degrees, which in Wyoming is usually mid-March or April, to prevent the seeds from germinating, Graus says. Crabgrass typically germinates in a 60- to 65-degree soil range, according to Kyle Miller, senior technical specialist for BASF’s Turf and Ornamental Products Group, Research Triangle Park, N.C. LCOs can check soil temperatures through weather, agriculture and university extension Web sites. They can also find soil temperatures by checking with product distributors or by using a soil temperature probe, Miller says.
But knowing the proper soil temperature isn’t the only timing factor LCOs must take into consideration. LCOs have the option of applying preemergent herbicides at different times of the year. Green Turf Lawnscapes provides customers with two application options. The first is a one-time application spread at a normal rate and the other is a split application at a higher rate. The split-rate application allows Green Turf to spread two applications six weeks apart for longer control. Weed Man, Lee’s Summit, Mo., also provides split-rate programs, with the first occurring in February or March and the second one six to seven weeks later, according to company President Jon Cundiff.
Green Turf Lawnscapes conducts fall applications only as a last resort because they can be more difficult to market. “It’s kind of a hard sell to get somebody to buy something in the fall that’s not going to be utilized in the spring, so I think some people just don’t want to invest the money until the next year,” Graus says. “There have been occasions where we have had a particular lawn that was just infested when we took it over, so we went ahead and put a late fall application of preemergent down and then did it again in the spring, and that was to make sure we didn’t miss any windows on the soil temperatures.”
Different parts of a property can vary in soil temperature, so a fall application can sometimes be beneficial for areas where in the spring the temperature was too high for preemergents to be effective. But, in general, fall applications are made less frequently, according to Miller. “I think lawn care operators are a little hesitant to do that because they want to do it more in real time and charge the customer for what they’re doing at that time and not from what they’re going to benefit from next year,” Miller says. “The other thing you have to consider is that in cool-season parts of the country they’re trying to sell overseeding services in the fall, so obviously you don’t want to use preemergent on a juvenile lawn, and that’s a fairly common treatment through the middle part of the country.”
But in warmer climates fall applications are more common. “In the south, we’re putting preemergents down in the spring and the fall because it stays warmer, and all the winter seeds come up here,” says Gary LaScalea, owner, GroGreen, Plano, Texas. GroGreen applies preemergents to its residential accounts eight times per year. For its commercial accounts, GroGreen conducts one application in the spring and another in the fall. Commercial accounts typically get fewer treatments because they have lower budgets, LaScalea says.
Birmingham, Ala.-based Classic Gardens applies preemergent herbicides throughout the growing season because outbreaks can continue year-round in warmer climates, says Classic Gardens Owner Mike Pender. Classic Gardens begins the first of its six preemergent applications in January and follows up with another application every other month for the year, Pender says. “There are times when people say that when the soil temperature reaches 65 degrees, crabgrass germinates,” Pender says. “Well sure it does, but it continues to germinate all summer long. We don’t like people getting weeds in their yard and having to come back to spray a postemergent. Customers find crabgrass very unacceptable, they find poa annua very unacceptable, they find any weed very unacceptable.”
| ALL MIXED UP |
Lawn care operators (LCOs) often combine preemergent herbicides with fertilizer to avoid making two separate applications. Some companies purchase these products premixed, but Worland, Wyo.-based Green Turf Lawnscapes has realized savings by developing its own preemergent/fertilizer formula, says company President Todd Graus. When Graus began experimenting with the combination, he realized that by using a fertilizer with a lower nitrogen content, he could mix more of the dry product with the liquid to avoid over-saturation. For instance, if a LCO wants to spread 1 ton of fertilizer that contains 1 pound of nitrogen over 10 acres, the application rate for the preemergent may be so high that it saturates the dry product. In such a case, the LCO would need to use a fertilizer with a lower nitrogen rate, according to Graus. “Let’s say you use urea, which is 46 percent nitrogen vs. ammonium sulfate, which is 21 percent,” he says. “It takes twice as much ammonium sulfate to give you the same nitrogen as urea, so you have twice as much fertilizer to absorb the 10 gallons of preemergent.” Other times, a drying agent, such as cat litter or talcum powder, can be pored on top of the wet fertilizer to dry the product. The fertilizer that Graus purchases costs $40 for a 2,000-pound bulk bag, and he says he’s saved 30 to 40 percent in costs by combining the two products. “If you buy a bag of fertilizer or preemergent, each costs you $40,” he says. “But if you buy the two combined, it costs you only $40.” |
PRICING PROCEDURES. Experience plays a large role in determining the ideal time to use a preemergent herbicide. Pricing formulations often work the same way. Green Turf Lawnscapes doesn’t have an exact science for setting its rates. Instead, the company looks at trends and after each season considers any changes that need to be made in its pricing structure, Graus says.
Graus figures his charge per 1,000 square feet by using a basic formula that includes product and labor costs plus a markup. Graus estimates the industry pricing range for preemergent applications at $8 to $14 per 1,000 square feet depending on lawn size. Green Turf tries to keep labor costs down to between 17 and 21 percent for the year, according to Graus. “We’re always trying to cut back on labor to get more efficient, so there’s more profit spread out across everybody,” he says.
In the winter, Graus meets with his managers, and they determine whether any changes need to be made in the company’s programs. For instance, the company may not need to treat a certain weed that it addressed the previous year because there wasn’t an outbreak, he says. When deciding a markup amount, each factor, such as product or labor costs, is marked up differently.
Markup can also vary depending on lawn size. Smaller lawns can actually cost more to manage than larger lawns, according to Graus. Ten 5,000-square-foot properties could be less profitable than one 100,000-square-foot property because the technician can complete the larger property in less than a day compared with the smaller jobs that require more driving time and fuel costs. In such a case, the LCO may consider slightly raising prices for the smaller properties, Graus says.
Most LCOs don’t price preemergent applications separately from other services. The applications are usually part of a more comprehensive program that may include fertilization, insect control and postemergent applications. Typically each total bill will remain the same even if a preemergent wasn’t applied that particular month as part of an annual contract, Graus says.
| RADIO DAYS |
Customers typically aren’t very receptive to things they don’t understand. If clients don’t know what a preemergent herbicide is, they’re probably less likely to ask for the service. That’s why part of marketing any lawn care service is communicating to clients the details of the professional products used in each application and how they’ll benefit from them. Mike Pender, owner of Birmingham, Ala.-based Classic Gardens, employs a variety of marketing tactics to educate potential customers about his services. One of the more effective methods has been a two-hour radio program that airs every Saturday morning at 7 a.m. on Birmingham’s 960 AM WERC. The company used to pay approximately $400 per hour to air the show but no longer has to pay because of its continued success, according to Pender. “The radio show is helpful,” he says. “When I’m talking on the radio I don’t want to sound like a Harvard law professor. I try to sound very down to earth. I don’t want answer questions too technical because that doesn’t do anybody any good.” Pender estimates that half of Classic Gardens’ business comes from the radio show and radio advertising. The company advertises on its own radio show and other radio stations, Pender says. The company tracks the success of each marketing method by asking customers how they heard about Classic Gardens and then entering that information into a database. The company also invests in direct marketing, newspaper ads and the Yellow Pages. The Yellow Pages ads produce the smallest number of sales, according to Pender. “I think most people who look in the Yellow Pages are price shoppers,” Pender says. “I like people who know our name without having to look in the Yellow Pages.” |
Classic Gardens charges $43 per month for 5,000 square feet, plus $2 for each additional 500 square feet for its treatments, according to Pender. The company applies 12 annual treatments, six of which include preemergent herbicides. Even though each treatment can vary in cost, Pender averages them out and comes up with a fixed monthly rate. “Like other lawn care companies, we charge the same rate every time we come out – we don’t fluctuate the price, despite whether or not preemergents cost more,” Pender says. “The customers wouldn’t want that – that would just be too confusing for them.”
Lawn care companies, especially startups, are lucky to break even at the beginning of the year because the monthly charge may not cover all the costs of applying multiple treatments that could include a combination of fertilizers, preemergents, postemergents and insect and disease controls, Graus says. But as the season winds down, LCOs should realize some profits because most of the weed, insect and disease problems should be gone. As a result, they’re applying fewer treatments while receiving the same monthly rate.
If customers cancel their contracts early, LCOs can require that the client pay a prorated amount. For instance, a customer may have received $200 worth of lawn care services, but the contract requires a $120 monthly payment. In this instance, Graus says he would bill the client for an additional $80. “We put a lot of effort and expense up front for that client to stay with us through the year,” he says, “but there are ways to recover any losses in a written contract.”
Explore the February 2005 Issue
Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.