July Cover Story Extra: Organics

A few years ago Sam Lang, president of Fairway Green Lawn Care in Raleigh, N.C., purchased an organic lawn care company and learned that the clients were more focused on a healthy, vibrant lawn than organic products.
          
“In the process of sitting down with each customer and talking to them about what their expectations were we found that with all of them organics was a buzz word,” Lang says. “What they wanted was a weed-free, pest-free lawn. They didn’t care."            

Lang converted 99.9 percent of those customers over to a regular chemical program.

Fairway Green does provide an organic program in its service offering, which only about 2 percent of its overall clients ask for, as well as an organics-plus program.

“We’ll go around and spot spray all the individual broadleaf weeds,” Lang says of the plus program. “That’s preferable than doing a broad application.”

Fairway Green charges a premium for the organic programs, about 30 percent more than a standard application.

Lang takes the application of pesticides very seriously. Even though North Carolina does not mandate contractors to be licensed, everyone at Fairway Green is pushed to become a licensed technician. Lang is also known widely as a green-industry steward who rallies against restrictive legislature, raising money for turfgrass research and helps other states set up legislative agendas.

“We’ve found that if people are anti-pesticide then they’re anti-pesticide,” Lang says of the debate between traditional chemical and organic applications. “And people who aren’t, aren’t. Usually there are not a lot of people that are going to cross back and forth.”