How the MetaActive™ effect allows you to cover more ground

By Dr. Eric Paysen, technical services manager for Syngenta

With over, as yet described, 16,000 species and up to millions of members in a single colony, ants are one of the most numerous and successful organisms. They directly compete with people’s homes, businesses and properties as they can efficiently utilize moisture, harborage and food.

Knowledge of ant biology, along with products designed with slower-acting modern active ingredients, enable treatments that can help produce ant-free results. Advion^®Ant gel bait from Syngenta, which includes the active ingredient indoxacarb, is proven to enhance ant control. Advion Ant has a low mammalian toxicity attributed to the MetaActive™ effect. The key is to let ants do the work themselves, as the delayed kill allows ants and other social insects to carry materials to nest mates before expiring.

How does the MetaActive effect work?

Indoxacarb, the active ingredient in Advion Ant with a low-toxicity, is a pro-insecticide, meaning it is a low-toxicity active ingredient that must be metabolized within the target pest to become an active pesticide with killing toxicity. This occurs within an insect when metabolic enzymes bio-activate the indoxacarb molecule by breaking it at specific sites that fit the enzyme. This chemical reaction produces smaller pieces, known as metabolites, which have powerful insecticidal properties that can now block the sodium channel of the insect nervous system.

This process may sound familiar because other well-known insecticides work at the same site of action but differently, including pyrethroids and DDTs. The result is a powerful, broad-spectrum insecticide, a favorable environmental profile and a delayed kill, making it ideal for ant management. There are two treatment methods – baiting or a liquid residual application (spraying) – both of which can be used to insert indoxacarb into ant colonies for bioactivation and elimination of queens, larvae and workers. Ants then actively spread indoxacarb throughout the colony by trophallaxis.

For more information, contact your country business manager.

USE BIOCIDES SAFELY. ALWAYS READ THE LABEL AND PRODUCT INFORMATION BEFORE USE. ADVION® AND METAACTIVE™ are trademarks of a Syngenta Group Company.

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