With nearly 200 exhibits to look over within a massive exhibition hall running to 125,000 square feet of space, any visitor had to be pretty determined to check out every exhibition stand or booth as they are called in the US. Within the time available, and after asking contacts what caught their eye, here is our round-up of what we spotted. Apologies to those we missed.
At last year’s exhibition we reported that there was nothing radically new, more a case of doing things better – or smarter. It was much the same again this year. The number of digital monitoring and management systems continues to snowball, as Syngenta’s Mike Parkin, Global Head Lawn & Garden Controls said in his general session presentation: “What’s captured my interest this week is the innovation in our industry. Professional pest management is embracing new technologies. Automation, detection and monitoring now enable a truly integrated approach to pest control.”
These digital products and systems we have reviewed within another web story so check these out there.
Here we include a quick sweep of all those other developments we spotted that we feel readers will be interested in.
Some of these are already available in Europe, some are in the pipeline and as they say are ‘coming soon’, whilst others may or may not, one day, make an appearance – as ever regulatory costs and legislation being the governing factor.
Biological control
But first – two products based on biological control. Within Pest magazine this summer we reported on the development by researchers at Penn State University of a naturally derived, fungal-based pesticide Beauveria bassiana that uses the bed bugs’ own natural tendencies to eliminate them. So it was heartening to see the product – Aprehend – had made it to market and is now on sale in most US States.
For some time birth control for birds has been available in the US and a product from Italy was spotted at PestEx 2017, but now its fertility control for rodents! Delivered as a liquid within a traditional bait box, ContraPest speeds up the natural egg loss in females and inhibits sperm production in males. Again this is available in the US from Senestech.
Although both products are far from novel ideas, their commercialisation is new, but they will face a rocky road to gain regulatory approval in Europe.
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Don McCandless and Nina Jenkins on their stand with now commercial 
Where else can you get sperm shaped stress balls! Designed to promote | Bait boxes – as ever! As ever there was a series of new bait boxes on display – here are three we spotted. However, taking a novel approach is the one from Pelsis – known as Project Neo. Readers will be all too aware of rodents’ dislike of anything new – known as neophobia. In effect, Project Neo removes the plastic floor of the box so rodents can enter it on familiar feeling and scented ground. Once inside, traditional baited traps await. On display was a prototype, with sales due to begin in early 2018. |
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 The Kill Vault mouse trap is a new discrete box from Woodstream |
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Richard Ardron demonstrates the part floorless Project Neo box
| What else spotted – most a case of ‘coming soon’ Looking around the booths, the only rodentice product spotted was from Bell Laboratories. On the Syngenta booth there was talk about their recently introduced Advion Evolution, a new indoxacarb-based cockroach bait using advanced bait technology which can be used in rotation with Optigard Cockroach gel bait. |
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Bell with their new single feed bromadiolone-based
Two new flavours added to the 
Carl Baptiste from | The most obvious often the best ideas What could well be a first, with others to follow, is the solar powered EFK from Kness, toughened and thickened bird wire for big and heavy birds, plus a new bed bug monitor gets closer… |
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A simple but effective idea. A solar powered fly trap from Kness – called 
Demonstrated by Cameron Ridell of Bird Barrier – beefed-up 