The United States Department of Agriculture has been enduring an ongoing struggle that involves having to ward off numerous pest invasions that can ruin crops and make life miserable for nearby residents, but they has stumbled across a technique that is making major inroads that focus on the eradication of male insect population.
The federal government, via their Department of Agriculture, has released the year end report that states that one of the promising insect control methods involves male eradication via potent attractants.
The report goes on to say that this method has proved extremely effective, and cite the fact that entomologists were able to virtually eradicate an entire population of oriental fruit flies that was plaguing a small island in the Pacific.
Providing evidence of this particular chemical's potent impact on the pest population, was the reason this test was undertaken. Methyl eugenol, a laboratory-deisgned chemical, is very hard for the male oriental fruit fly to resist.
When released in the air, the bugs are drawn from the crop area. The test further showed, not surprisingly, that with the male members of the species removed the rest of the population slowly died out.
The Department of Agriculture says that the chemicals used in the experiments is just one of the many they have successfully been able to extract from females and can re-purpose as a means of attracting the male members of the species.
In lesser peach borers, cabbage loppers, and female houseflies, such attractants were discovered. The results indicate that we may be moving towards a new generation of chemical treatment which will use chemo-sterilants, chemicals that are intended to render male insects infertile.
In order to produce these chemicals from the attractant synthetically and for a less expensive price, the research scientists are trying to break down and understand the content of such attractants.
The early indications are that chemo-sterilization are a good strategy to use when trying to achieve eradication. The initial impetus for conducting eradication experiments came from successful experiments performed with boll weevils, house flies, and a few other types of insects.
Male screwworm flies are being sterilized with the use of gamma radiation in an attempt to eradicate the pest from the southwest. The process has already been tested in many of the southeastern states and has shown to be very effective when implemented.
Lots of sterile flies were released from the lab to seek native fly mates. The female screwworm mates with the sterile male, and the resulting egg will not hatch. Female screwworms mate one time only.
The report claims eradication of agriculture blights like the boll weevil, cotton pest and houseflies is possible now. There are substances taken from cotton plants that will repel weevils and male weevils have been used to extract substances that will be used to attract them.
Department of Agriculture reports indicate that the government has had to insure millions of dollars of crops in the past with federal crop insurance, a number they hope to reduce. This insurance was needed to guard against loss of hundred of thousands of crops to natural disasters across millions of acres, according to the agency.
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