Robert's Rants
Robert's Rants
A personal blog on the Canadian pesticide industry and other pet peeves and interests
Robert's Rants

Robert Percy is the Director of Operations for Gardex Chemicals, and has been with the company for 19 years, and a bona fide resident of Canada since 2002. Prior to that Robert worked 17 years with ICI/Zeneca, now formerly known as Syngenta. Robert had numerous roles in the company, including Senior Marketing Manager for the Stauffer acquired multi-crop herbicides, then the soybean and cotton herbicides Fusilade, Reflex and Fusion. His last assignment was with the non-Ag Group, Zeneca Professional Products, with responsibility for marketing and strategy for the US and Canada.

Robert hails from the great state of Kansas, and has a Bachelor's Degree in Horticulture. He's attended many post grad courses, through Kansas State University, the University of Kansas, Southwestern, and Wharton School of Business to name a few.

All opinions are his own and do not reflect the policies of Gardex Chemicals Ltd.

Here a tech, there a tech….wait where the heck are all the techs?

Good question eh?  The best solution so far? Steal ’em. Thats right, simply poach from a competitor. Have a little chat with a big 3 company technician…you know, Abell/Orkin/Steritech as you run into one picking up product at Gardex. I see it daily. Or put your business card under the wiper every time you see […]

Read More »

2024 winter: The swarmers come early.

February 10th, this constantly cold Kansan is standing next to the lake an hour north of Toronto trout fishing. Not ice fishing as you’d imagine, but using a 9’ fly rod and cast a leech patterned fly into open water around the dam. Second day of record temps, 12 degrees and sunny! And the second […]

Read More »

2023 Polluter of the Year goes to……(pretend drum roll)

Mayor of Toronto Olivia Chow! The Queen of carbon monoxide herself, The Right or Left Honorable Olivia Chow. Oh, c’mon Robert, she’s all about green and trees and tree huggers and peace on earth, good will blah blah So here’s why she’s the only nomination. Bike Lanes. I repeat: BIKE LANES Another OMG Robert, bike […]

Read More »

Can I control insects without pesticides? You betcha!

Well, with a couple of caveats: Time is irrelevant , it may take 3 life cycles or say 4-6 months. How much do I charge? How much do you have? 😉 And Health Canada reclassifies what actually constitutes a pesticide, and adopt a system where “Generally Regarded As Safe” products are outside this new definition […]

Read More »

I just committed a pesticide, call the cops! Or the MOECC

It’s 3:25 am, another night of not sleeping, and i just devoured a left over hot dog and a homemade chocolate shake. so you lie awake at night and your mind roams. And tonite I’m dwelling on all the ”cide” words, which generally regard killing something. Herbicide, pesticide, homicide, genocide, biocide, even molluscicide of all […]

Read More »

So that was it? Another summer shot to hell

It’s gotta be the age, or post C19, or something that makes time seem to fly by. What happened to the summer, and all the fun bugs that go with it? Anyone see uptick in overall treatments? “Not really” or ”meh” is the answer I get most of in the back. Ants? Plenty hot enough, […]

Read More »

Fires and fish kill….never good.

The city of Toronto has just had an environmental event with contaminated water breaching a local waterway that feeds into Lake Ontario. A large chemical supplier/warehouse catches fire, and in order to contain the 7 alarm inferno from other chemical warehouses a vast amount of water was thrown at the blaze. The end result was […]

Read More »