What is Pyrethrum?
Pyrethrum is a botanical insecticide produced primarily in the flowers of Tanacetum cinerariaefolium, a species of the chrysanthemum plant family. Pyrethrum plants have historically been grown in commercial quantities in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Papua New Guinea. More recently a company in Tasmania, Australia began producing pyrethrum. Today Kenya and Australia are the largest pyrethrum growing and producing countries.
In East Africa the mature pyrethrum flowers are picked by hand, sun dried to remove moisture, and sent to a processing plant for extraction of the active ingredient-pyrethrins, a mixture of six closely related esters. In Australia the flowers have been bred to synchronously flower so they can be mechanically harvested. As in Africa, the flowers are sun dried and processed to extract the insecticide pyrethrum.
Pyrethrum is an ancient insecticide. The insecticide properties of the flowers were documented in the early 1800’s but it is suspected that the flowers were used to kill insects a considerable time earlier. The first commercially available products were powders made from ground flowers and later crude oil extractions became popular. Today, the refining of crude pyrethrum extract to remove the plant material, waxes, etc. is a highly complex process resulting in a very high grade product.
Pyrethrum has been used effectively to control insects for decades and is non-persistent, decomposing rapidly in the environment. This rapid degradation of pyrethrum has resulted in little known cases of insect resistance making it an excellent choice for the control of agricultural pests.
PyGanic® Crop Protection Products from MGK contain a new and unique form of pyrethrum and are listed by the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) for use in organic production. Pyganic® was the first pyrethrum-based product to be listed by the OMRI for use in organic farming. Through proprietary technological advances, MGK has successfully developed a product that is compliant with organic standards and maintains all the desirable attributes of pyrethrum–flush, rapid knockdown, kill, and rapid degradation.
PyGanic® is effective in killing over 40 agricultural pests and is approved for use on over 200 crops and ornamentals. A few of the more important pests controlled by PyGanic® include; glassy winged sharpshooter, Colorado potato beetle, stink bug, aphids, thrips, and loopers.