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Like a Moth to a ... Piece of Plastic
An anonymous writer sends: "Cook and DuPage counties in Illinois are attempting to deal with their gypsy moth problem by bombarding the moth population with female moth pheromone coated plastic flakes. This will overwhelm the males sensory organs, and inhibit their future reproduction. It will only require about 15 grams of flakes to cover each acre."
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Cook and DuPage counties in Illinois are attempting to deal with their Linux user problem by bombarding the geek population with PowerBooks and RealDolls. This will overwhelm the nerds' sensory organs, and inhibit their future open-source coding binges.
"The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for 'entrepeneur'." -George W. Bush
First Post!
Pheremone covered plastic flakes will probably work as well as the "sterile" meditaranean fruit flies Jerry "Governor Moonbeam" Brown released in California to combat the fruit fly problem. They were fertile. It got worse. I wonder if the Governor of Illinois is going to get himself a nickname over this one.
How ya like dat?
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/dec97/moth12 97.htm Popular-style article h eets/fs-generic_lep.htm very technical, EPA-orientedt m Article about an insect population simulation program. m Dr. Pat Muir's notes for a college class, short, readable. Excerpt:
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/biopesticides/facts
http://www.wcrl.ars.usda.gov/cec/papers/jce93-9.h
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2174.html Using bt instead
http://fwie.fw.vt.edu/rhgiles/Trevey/Gypsy.htm Vermont, long piece, "gyplure"
http://www.orst.edu/instruction/bi301/chemcont.ht
"The advantages of pheromone use include the facts that they:
* are nontoxic
* are biodegradable
* can be used at low concentrations
* are highly species specific
Hazards or difficulties associated with their use include the facts that:
* resistance to pheromones could potentially evolve (although it would then be difficult for insects to find mates!)
* it is expensive and takes a long time to achieve commercial production."
More than you wanted to know about gypsy moths
In reading up about this I found that some of the same people who don't like pesticides also don't like Bt and pheromones. You wonder how they're going to like a deforested Pacific Northwest if those moths get loose up there.
P.S. URL for the meetup
That was 1981. The flies weren't irradiated enough--which was an industrial accident of sorts, not enough quality control at the insect irradiating plant (which was in Mexico). I don't think you can blame careless procedure in a foreign production facility on the governor of California no matter how much you personally dislike him.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these plastic flakes. Hey, waittaminut... Nevermind.
if this would work in black neighborhoods.
I know, let's dump a bunch of plastic covered in moth-semen in the woods. THAT'LL get rid of them. Wait, what do you mean, pollution?
I'd hate to work at the factory that makes these things. A friend of mine was a forestry student and used the liquid form of the pheremone to bait traps. He said he got a drop on his finger and moths were trying to mate with his ear for months!