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Researchers at HortResearch plan to create special insect scents for use in the biological control of wasps and ants.
The Government is giving the state science company $787,500 over 28 months to develop "environmentally friendly" technologies.
Agencies such as the Department of Conservation use protein-rich baits and sugar syrups to deliver a neurological inhibitor, Fipronil, to several pests.
Scientists have experimented with a wide range of food baits - ground-up silkworm pupae mixed with sugar syrup was more attractive to red imported fire ants than soybean oil on corn grits - and have found that cooked egg white and cooked yolk mixed with sugar syrup works on Argentine ants.
The Argentine ants and German wasps to be targeted by the new baits are invasive agricultural and urban pests that also pose a significant ecological problem by threatening native insects and birds.
Until now, wasp plagues affecting wildlife in South Island beech forests have been tackled by baiting with canned catfoods such as sardines in aspic, with Fipronil added to the meat.
HortResearch biosecurity science leader Max Suckling says that, at the very least, it should be possible to replicate the scent of the sardines so that conservation workers do not have to carry large amounts of smelly catfood.
The initial work on wasps will probably be tested in Canterbury beech forest relatively close to HortResearch's Lincoln centre.
The team already has extensive experience with developing synthetic pheromones for pests such as painted apple moth and codling moth.
- NZPA
