CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING
NEWS VOLUME
40,
NUMBER
7
The Chemical W o r l d This Week
FEBRUARY
12, 1962
Lawn, Garden Chemicals Line Up for Market Sales expected to hit $525 million this year, $700 million by 1965; host of new products being readied for bows this season Lawn and garden chemicals are ready to be off and running as soon as the first hint of spring arrives. Sales this year are expected to be close to $525 million in all. Prospects for the future look just as bright. One industry observer predicts an annual market of $700 million in 1965. Last year, sales totaled almost $480 million, nearly doubling those of five years earlier. For 1962, chemical companies are lining up a host of new products. Lilly's Elanco Products division is unveiling nine new products for its Greenfield line. Dow's crab grass killer, Zytron, will be joined by six Dow weed and grass killers this season. Du Pont is adding a Japanese beetle killer and a complete line of new lawn-care products. The Ortho division of California Chemical plans to offer a new crab grass killer, a lawn and soil insecticide, a lawn fungicide, and several new plant foods. Armour Agricultural Chemical will launch a new line of pesticides, called Vertagard, plus a new fertilizer for lawns. International Minerals is featuring a combination lawn food and crab grass preventer in its 1962 line-up. Amchem Products is preparing to market a new tomato spray called Tomatotone. These are only a fraction of the growing list. For companies like Lilly and Upjohn, the lawn and garden market is especially attractive. The lawn and garden business fits in well with their drug know-how and, more important yet, it provides steady sales. Such sales help level out the valleys which all too often characterize the year-toyear sales picture of the pharmaceutical industry. Upjohn entered the
GARDENING MARKET. Fertilizers and pesticides represent a big consumer market. California Chemical's Ortho division is one of the biggest suppliers
market in 1957 with Actidione PM, an antibiotic fungicide. Lawn and garden products are equally attractive to chemical companies. Witness Dow's expanded line, which marks another step for it toward the consumer. Forward integration offers chemical firms better market control of product lines and one way out of the present squeeze on prices and profit margins. Three-in-One. Lilly's approach to lawn and garden chemicals is based on multiple-action products. It entered the field in 1960, when its Elanco Products division began test marketing three products in five Ohio and In-
diana cities. Sold under the name Greenfield, they are a product for grass control based on diphenatrile preemergent herbicide, a double-action crab grass killer, and a double-action plant food. Both of the latter products contain fertilizer plus diphenatrile. This season Elanco has changed the active ingredients in these products and has added six new ones. It will market in 10 midwestern and northeastern states. The new products are triple-action, spray-on, and summertime crab grass killers; a tripleaction plant food; grass and weed control; a double-action rose food; an antibiotic rose dust; a rose ornamental FEB.
12,
1962
C&EN
25
NEW RIG. Eli Lilly tests new insecticides with this rig, which it developed especially for ornamentals
RUB IT OUT. Dow's new bar form of herbicide makes it easy to remove grass from spots like this
insecticide spray; and a measuredrelease lawn food. Elanco says its new lawn food contains a 20-10-5 fertilizer with the nitrogen coated for release at a controlled rate. Unlike older slow-release fertilizers, it doesn't depend on temperature, moisture, and soil bacteria. Part of the nitrogen is available immediately and the rest is protected in tiny coated prills. As moisture enters the beads, both moisture and a measured amount of nitrogen are released through microscopic pores in the coatings. In this way, Elanco explains, grass gets nitrogen as it needs it and doesn't burn. Elanco's triple-action, grass and weed control, and rose food products are based on trifluralin, a new preemergent herbicide more effective in smaller dosages than diphenatrile. The summer crab grass killer also contains disodium methylarsonate hexahydrate to destroy existing crab grass, plus 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T for broadleaf weeds. Greenfield triple-action plant food, Elanco says, kills all grasses, and also contains a 4-12-4 fertilizer and an insecticide to combat grubs and other soil insects. Now busy contacting dealers, Elanco is encouraged by initial response to its Greenfield line. Advance sales have been running higher than expected, it says.
Dow entered the lawn and garden market in 1959 via Zytron, a pre-emergent crab grass killer. It test marketed Zytron in Michigan, sold it in 14 northeastern states last year. This season Dow will offer it nationally, hopes to grab off a sizable portion of the estimated $25 million market for crab grass killers. Dow will also go nationwide with its six new entries— Dowpon grass killer in powder and bar form, Novege weed and grass killer, and herbicides that kill clover, chickweed, and dandelion. The active ingredient in Dowpon is Dalapon, the sodium salt of 2,2dichloropropionic acid. The bar, a wedge of wax impregnated with Dalapon, is applied by rubbing it over unwanted grasses. Still in the development stage is Dow's Dowpon aerosol. Novege, a soil sterilizer, is formulated from a herbicide called Erbon. Both the clover and chickweed products are based on 2,4,5-T. The dandelion killer uses 2,4-D. Dow has a number of products still in various stages of development. This season it plans to test market a wide-spectrum insecticide with low mammalian toxicity for checking snails and slugs. Still in development are a pre-emergent weed killer based on Zytron and an aquatic weed control.
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FEB.
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Du Pont's insecticide spray for controlling Japanese beetles is based on Sevin, which is 1-naphthyl-N-methyl carbamate. Its new line of lawn-care chemicals is built around a 20-10-10 turf food containing a urea-formaldehyde fertilizer as the nitrogen source, a turf food with 2,4-D weed killer, Oust crab grass preventer D (Dacthal), two Oust lawn insecticides (chlordan), and Oust crab grass killer with disodium methylarsonate. Test marketed in five metropolitan areas in 1961, these lawn chemicals will be offered nationally this year. Ortho, one of the largest suppliers of garden pesticides, is tending toward more specificity in its product approach to the lawn and garden market. For instance, it now has three different products for use on different lawn diseases. This spring Ortho will bring six new products to market. One is Kleenup, a pre-emergent specific for crab grass seed. The active ingredient is calcium propylarsonate. For lawns, it offers Dibrom spray (a lawn and soil insecticide which contains a phosphate insecticide and lindane) plus a broad-spectrum fungicide. Its new oil spray is effective against mealy bugs, red spiders, white flies, and scale insects on plants. For acidloving plants, Ortho has two liquid products—a plant food for azaleas and camellias and another for evergreens and azaleas. Armour Agricultural's new line includes two herbicides for crab grass, a weed killer, an insecticide, and a 2010-10 lawn fertilizer called Lightweight Vertagreen. The pre-emergent crab grass formulation contains Dacthal; the post-emergent one, disodium methylarsonate. The insecticide is chlordan-based. And the weed killer contains both 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. Armour will market them in 39 states east of the Rocky Mountains. The Vertagreen plant food line also includes special formulations for trees and shrubs. International Minerals & Chemical, in the lawn and garden business about five years, centers its efforts on plant foods. Basic trade names are Thrive, Rainbow, and Gold Seal. This spring, IMC will market Thrive with a crab grass preventer—a combination of lawn food and Dacthal. The Thrive line also includes a regular fertilizer, a premium product for lawns, a formulation with weed killers, Instant Thrive, and three special plant foods for bulbs, roses, and vegetables.
