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I work at a school in an area with a high incidence of tick-borne diseases (even the one that makes you allergic to red meat!) and some parents have asked the school to spray the grounds for ticks.

I don't believe this is necessary for the following reasons:

  1. there are no woods or tall grassy areas abutting the turf areas.
  2. the turf area are mowed regularly.
  3. in my understanding, ticks just don't inhabit mowed turf to any large degree anyway.
  4. the "safe" sprays only kill ticks on contact and would not offer prolonged protection.
  5. the products that would offer some kind of sustained protection contain unacceptably toxic chemicals unsuitable (or maybe illegal?) to use on school properties.

But I could be missing something that would tip the scales in favor of spraying.

So is spraying for ticks an effective way to protect kids from ticks on soccer fields or other turfed areas?

That Idiot
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  • this is a good question, it's just not about gardening, it may be closed – kevinskio May 03 '21 at 11:36
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    I can't find the reference, but I seem to recall even the CDC recently making note that ticks have been becoming problematic even on short-grass fields - in some places bad enough that sports teams have stopped visiting certain schools due to the problem. Particularly humid places, where the grass tends to be wetter or dew-covered in mornings, seem to be more affected, at least as far as maintained short-grass fields are concerned. Not sure about the effectiveness of pesticides in these cases. – J... May 03 '21 at 18:56

1 Answers1

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Ticks are a concern for gardeners since the act of gardening might encourage ticks where they might not otherwise be. One thing you might do is follow the sampling techniques used by local natural resource authorities - they may drag a cloth across the area, and this motion causes ticks to land on the cloth where they can be counted. Likely in a closely mowed context the cloths would be clear of any ticks.

Colin Beckingham
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