<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/08/insecticides-integrated-pest-management-crops-cotton-farming>
"While trying to come up with a pesticide solution to kill off bollworms, Dr
Robert Mensah had his eureka moment.
It was the 90s, and in Australia bollworms were devastating cotton farms, with
the larvae of these moths chomping up the crops faster than farmers could
eradicate them. The farmers were trapped in an arms race with the bollworms,
applying more and more pesticide to combat an increasingly resistant species of
pest – killing many beneficial insects in the process.
Instead of carrying on down the death spiral, Mensah, an entomologist working
at the Cotton Research Institute, began to wonder whether it might be possible
to get another insect in to do the job. He experimented and eventually came up
with a simple food spray, “a mixture of food ingredients, yeast and
sugar-based, diluted in water and applied to crops. It emits an odour which is
picked up by beneficial predatory insects and attracts them to the fields where
they kill pests.”
He started testing it out in the fields and found that food sprays could entice
useful predators such as ladybirds and lacewings. A refuge crop of evergreen
alfalfa flowers could also support their populations year-round, so they
wouldn’t leave at the end of the season and be poisoned by pesticides in the
surrounding landscape. It was the beginning of an international grassroots
campaign, in which Mensah has worked with various charities to teach people
about this sustainable farming method.
Ever since the dangerous side effects of pesticides became widely known,
alternatives have been sought. This approach to farming, which reduces our
reliance on pesticides, is called integrated pest management."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
