Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 20, 1994 TAG: 9411220041
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A18 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
DATELINE: FORT WORTH, TEXAS LENGTH: Medium
To test his formula, he poured some of the concoction over a friend's property one day in 1989 to see if it would improve the grass. He also sloshed some on fire ant mounds that dotted the property.
The grass got greener, all right, but there was a more significant side effect. The fire ants started dying.
``Within a few days, we noticed that the survivors were carrying dead ants, larvae and queens out of the mounds and stacking them outside,'' Holz said. ``In a few more days, the mounds were completely dead.''
Now, Holz and his partner, Tarleton State University student Sabino Cortez, are marketing their discovery - not as a fertilizer, but as a killer of fire ants, those aggressive, swarming, stinging pests.
Cortez devised the idea of whirling cow manure around in a centrifuge to separate out the nutrient-rich liquids from the solids.
Searching for a use for tons of manure on dairy farms southwest of Fort Worth, Cortez had developed the separation process to produce a compost-like material from the manure solids. He sold the patent on that process, which he called AgKone, to a Houston firm.
He then began trying to find a way to market the high-nutrient liquid. That's where Holz, founder of Sphere Corp., came in. He developed the fire ant-killing formula.
The Environmental Protection Agency approved the product, called True Stop, in August. It now is on sale in Dallas, Fort Worth and the Austin area.
Apparently, the killer ingredient is the natural insecticide rotenone, which occurs in plants. The rotenone, in conjunction with other natural compounds in the liquid, attacks the ants' innards.
Holz said True Stop is also effective against the white fly tomato pest, and he has high hopes that it will kill termites.
by CNB