Landscape Management
Tips For Creating a Tick-Safe Zone in your Yard:
- Remove leaf litter.
- Mow your lawn frequently.
- Place a 3+ ft barrier of gravel or woodchips between lawns and wooded areas to restrict migration of ticks onto your lawn.
- Discourage rodent hosts by stacking wood in a dry place.
- Keep play equipment and outdoor decks far from wooded areas.
- Construct fences to prevent unwanted animals (deer, raccoons, etc.) from entering your yard.
- Remove invasive species that are associated with tick abundance.
For more Information:
Yard Treatments and Acaricides
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Commercial Yard Treatments Applied by Pest Management Professionals
During 2023, we worked in Eau Claire with 65 families to evaluate the effectiveness of 3 commercial service types on nymphal blacklegged/deer tick populations: Mosquito Only applying liquid acaricide via backpack mister and Mosquito & Tick, combining the Mosquito Only service with a granular acaricide. We found that one treatment provided by commercial pest management technicians reduced the nymphal ticks by 80-90% in the treated zone next to the woods, where the risk is highest. The impact persisted for 4 weeks after the treatment. We also found that about half of the homes that received the treatments didn’t produce any ticks in the area we sampled.
In 2024, we recruited 84 houses in the Eau Claire area to continue the study and added a Tick Only treatment group, applying only the granular acaricide to the property perimeter.
We found the following percent reductions in density of nymphs in 2023 and 2024:
Mosquito Only:
69.6% (2023) and 63.2% (2024)
Mosquito and Tick:
88.1% (2023) and 61.4% (2024)
Tick Only:
71.7% (2024)
Do-it-Yourself Tick Control
During 2019, we worked with two communities in Wisconsin to test a lawn treatment that many people use to control grubs to see if it was also effective in reducing deer ticks. We treated a narrow strip between the yards and adjacent woods in May and then measured tick density at the edge of the woods and a few feet into the yards for up to 4 weeks after treatment (through the peak of the nymphal season). The treatment resulted in a high level of reduction of nymphal ticks in the lawn areas in comparison with yards that received only a water treatment. The product is available as a do-it-yourself treatment from many home repair stores.
DIY Yard Treatments Tutorial Video (2025 Study)
What is an Area-Applied Acaricide?
An area-applied acaricide is a tick management strategy that involves spraying chemical insecticides in an area to control ticks. This is in contrast to another acaricide tick management strategy that uses host-targeted acaricides to passively treat tick hosts. Learn more about host-targeted acaricides.
Applications of area-applied acaricides can be made by the homeowner or by a commercial applicator.
Additional information on Pesticides:
National Pesticide Information Center
EPA: Reducing the Risk of Tick-Borne Diseases through Smart, Safe and Sustainable Pest Control
Minimum-Risk Pesticides
The EPA defines a pesticide as “any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest.” While most pesticides require EPA registration under FIFRA, some are exempt and classified as “minimum risk pesticides.” These products contain specific active and inert ingredients that the EPA has determined pose “little to no risk to human health or the environment.” Many use essential oils as active ingredients and are commonly found in skin-applied repellents or area-applied pest control products.
Read more about Minimum Risk Pesticides:
We are currently conducting lab and field trials of several Minimum Risk Pesticides to evaluate their effectiveness on reducing tick density.