The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded NC State a grant of $6.7 million to support pest control research which has the potential to save the agriculture industry hundreds of millions of dollars.
NC State will conduct research on possible pest control methods for a relatively new invasive species of fruit fly, spotted wing drosophila, that has become an increasing annoyance all over the United States. The fruit flies lay eggs resulting in larvae that grow in blueberry, strawberry, blackberry and cherry crops. The larvae feed on the fruit, which introduces microbes that cause the fruit to decay.
Marketers have a zero tolerance policy with the larvae—if any shipments of fruit contain even one larva, then the whole shipment is rejected, which creates a huge loss for the growers.
Another focus of the research is to develop different strategies to help growers reduce their reliance on insecticides because they can have large blanket impacts on an area’s ecosystem. However, the research hopes to implement genetic control strategies to decrease insecticide use.
One of the suggested genetic approaches is genetically sterilizing the male flies to decrease population. Another proposed ecological strategy would be the injection of a species-specific predator that would only target these pests.
“The advantage of this genetic approach is that it is very species specific so you’re only targeting the invasive species,” said Max Scott, an associate professor of Entomology at NC State and participant in the research project, said. “The downside is that it is very expensive so it works best when the target population is low.”
As Scott described, a combination of efforts are required to curb this pest. The research team is also developing population models to efficiently monitor and predict the population of these invasive species, in addition to the proposed introduction of species-specific predators and genetically altered sterile males.
The population models aim to bring down current populations and the genetic control strategies to increase genetic suppression anywhere from three to 10 fold and growers may experience positive change within as early as the next five years, according to Scott.
“We want to make this process as efficient as possible,” Scott said.
The fruit flies have only recently been introduced to the continental United States. The spotted wing drosophila, the species of fruit fly currently infesting crops across the U.S., is not native to North America. They were first found in California in 2008 and reached North Carolina by 2010.
In the span of seven years the U.S. has gone from not having these pests anywhere, to having them become a widespread issue.
Hannah Burrack, an associate professor of entomology and extension specialist is the grant’s team leader. Also working on the research project are Zack Brown, an assistant professor from the agricultural and resource economics department; Rhonda Conlon, director of the extension information technology department; and Jean-Jaques Dubois, research coordinator with the Southern Integrated Pest Management Center.
