According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mosquitoes can spread West Nile virus, dengue and malaria. Just a few infected mosquitoes can start an outbreak in a community.
James Cap, president of NEA Lawn Pro in Jonesboro, Ark., says that while big-ticket landscape installs are trending down for his business, insect control is trending up.
“We’ve had a lot of customers calling in, signing up for insect control,” Cap says. “That’s probably been our biggest add-on this year. Customers are asking for mosquito control because we’re out in the cropland. We have mosquitoes from flooding fields, the rice fields. It’s been a good add-on service, a repeat service, and we’ll keep them on the books for years to come.”
Landscape Management and its sister publication, Pest Management Professional (PMP), accepted an exclusive invitation to the Envu research facility in Morrisville, N.C., to learn about the company’s new biological mosquito control solution, Barricor Essential Mosquito Control.
The researchers and formulators
Barricor is a FIFRA 25(b) essential-oil-based insecticide. When used as directed, it delivers a 24-hour mortality rate for mosquitoes and is safe for all other insects, including pollinators and butterflies. The product is water-based and easy to mix. With no signal word or PPE required, the solution is designed to enhance applicator safety and is safe to use in a wide variety of environments.
According to Envu’s Arunas Damijonaitis, Ph.D., solutions development manager, the company went the extra mile to make sure Barricor is eco-friendly.
“This is an essential oil-based product, safe for everything except mosquitoes,” he says. “I’m confident in saying that because we did a lot of research on this. We ran toxicology tests that are required for EPA products. That would not be required for this product — we did it anyway.”
Kyle Denk, formulations and analytics manager for Envu, says lawn and landscape management customers want a product that’s backed by science as being safe to apply around their homes and businesses.
“We have built an essential oil product that is also a safe product,” Denk says. “We’re able to spray a lot lower essential-oil rate compared to some of the other products. That’s the result of the formulation technology that went into building this product.”
Denk demonstrated how Barricor mixes with water and doesn’t separate. He also mixed other mosquito control products, which didn’t demonstrate as consistent of a mixture.
“The product is formulated in a way that’s easy to use for the operator,” Damijonaitis says. “It’s really good in storage. It doesn’t separate. It’s easy to mix. It stays in solution.”
Demo day
Envu research biologist Debbie Koufas gave LM a demonstration on how to apply Barricor Essential Mosquito Control. The video is posted on LandscapeManagement.net.
“It’s very easy (to apply). Two or four ounces per gallon, pour it in a backpack sprayer. Fire it up and get to spraying,” Koufas says. “You want to spray the shrubbery where mosquitoes are hiding.”
Koufas says the results are immediate. If a lawn care company wanted to make sure there were no mosquitoes for an event — say, a wedding or an outdoor concert — they could apply it 12-24 hours before the event and expect to have total mosquito control.
“This has been a really fun project to work on,” Koufas adds. “I’ve worked on many over the years with the companies I’ve been with, and this is the shortest one I’ve worked on that’s gone from concept to market.”
Typically, it takes the pest industry four to seven years to bring a new product to market. Envu launched Barricor in just two years.
Damijonaitis adds that though the spread of disease by mosquitoes isn’t as prevalent in America as it is in other parts of the world, mosquito control is an important service to offer customers.
“Being bit by a mosquito, nobody likes that,” he says. “We’re lucky in this environment there’s not a lot of disease, but not everybody is that lucky. It’s a product that, in my opinion, is really important to public health.”
Fuel for the pipeline
Envu formed in 2022 as a spinoff from Bayer Environmental Science. In late 2024, Envu acquired FMC’s Global Specialty Solutions business, which included products for pest control, lawn care, golf courses and sports fields.
Bernard Jacqmin, head of global innovation at Envu, says the launch of Barricor is another sign that the company is committed to creating solutions for its customers.
“We’ve been able to fuel our pipeline like never before,” Jacqmin told LM. “We continue working where we are strong with chemical solutions, but we are also tapping into new technology spaces that are alternatives to chemicals, and we believe society at large is very much interested in these new trends.”
