A Letter from Jan

 

  Whether you are a gardener or a veteran professional farm manager, Rincon-Vitova offers you the fruits of nearly five decades of our research and service in ecologically-based pest management (EBPM)*. Everett “Deke” Dietrick started this business in 1960, teaching conventional cotton farmers how to avoid the use of addictive chemical pesticides.

 

Today, we continue this work with determination—to protect the world from the pollution of pesticides that contaminate our soils, water and air. Rincon-Vitova provides the best possible commercial source of information, beneficial organisms, and other tools used in ecologically based pest management .

Jan Dietrick, General Manager, Rincon-Vitova Insectaries, Inc.

 

While providing the most accessible source of commercial biocontrol resources for farmers, we endeavor to keep costs down without compromising our mission and goals . (Insert link here to mission and goals on page 18). In this catalog we offer a wide range of tools for ecological farming. We offer price breaks for large quantity orders; and, for buyers of smaller quantities, you can reduce your costs by cooperating with neighbors to order two or more items.EBPM is more effective in a larger area, because you will be importing predators instead of pests from your neighbors!

 

Our products and technical support reflect a multi-pronged approach to avoid conventional chemical pesticides and implement EBPM using:

  • Over 70 species of predators and parasitoids that find and destroy plant pests.
  • A selection of products that help predators and parasitoids do their job.
  • A technical manual, CD, and website with regularly updated technical bulletins.
  • Plants that provide habitat for beneficial insects.
  • Monitoring tools, including the D-Vac vacuum insect net invented by Deke, which aids early pest detection and evaluation of natural biological control forces. Our experience demonstrates that using the D-Vac to assess the diversity of beneficial insect life stages provides useful information on the progress of biological control forces.
  • A group of "knock-down" botanical and microbial products that tip the balance in favor of natural enemies during the tough transition from chemical to biological methods. See our new Orange Oil and Orange Guard Bulletin.

How many organizations do you call these days where people actually answer the phone and are ready to help you solve complex problems? Our experienced entomologists are available with in-depth answers to your questions.

We also do all we can to monitor and protect the quality of the biocontrol agents that we send out. It says a lot that we are the supplier of choice for over 130 university research departments.

 

Thanks also to the 3,000 consultants and pest control advisors, large and small farmers, nursery and greenhouse operators, landscapers and interior plantscapers, livestock and composting operators, hotel, resort, zoo and botanical garden horticulturists, and home gardeners for the opportunity to do this work with you. We know we are making a difference through our efforts to develop sustainable, safe agriculture, meaning the growing of plants and animals on any scale.

 

In addition to managing the insectary business, I also head up a non-profit (formed in 1997), the Dietrick Institute for Applied Insect Ecology, to provide training for farmers and farmworkers in biological control. See www.dietrick.org . We set up the Institute in response to offers from a number of government agencies and donors who share the goal of cleaning up the environment and have been impressed with our unique and effective methods. Our operations budget of $20,000 allows us to carry out project budgets of around $120,000. We could make an even bigger difference, if we had more resources for outreach and education.

 

We welcome new partners to help the Dietrick Institute train farm workers about proven biocontrol techniques and rescue them from concentional methods that are unsafe and polluting. If you know of a person or organization that would like to partner with the Dietrick Institute, just give me a call. I’d love to hear from you

 

Who we are, what we do, and our great customers are our best advertising. We count on you to spread the word about us with friends, neighbors and colleagues so that we can continue in our fifth decade working for safe, environmentally responsible, ecological pest management.

 

Happiness,

Jan Dietrick

RVI General Manger