http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100624214306.htm
These nematodes could be the ans
wer to environmentally friendly pesticides!
SUMMARY: The western corn rootworm has been eating the maize, a plant grown in many countries around the world. This rootworm is a problem in 11 of the European countries, as well as the United States. Farmers tried to kill the pest when it first arrived using pesticides. Unfortunately, these pesticides ended up killing millions of bees-a harmful, unintended consequence. Mr. Ivan Hiltpold researched an organism called the nematodes in hopes that it would be the answer to the agricultural and environmental dilemma. Mr. Ted Turlings and some of his colleagues furthered this research, bringing the nematodes into fields of maize to test their protection against the western corn rootworm. The conclusion of this research was that the nematodes in fields with caryophellene were better than their non-caryophellene-field colleagues, but all nematodes were effective at repelling the pest.
REACTION: This is wonderful news! There is so much happening to show us that people simply don't care about the environment and only themselves, but Hiltpold and Turlings have completed hours of research showing us otherwise. This information gives me high hopes for a future where more fields are protected by environmentally safe organisms rather than harmful pesticides. Even though this type of pesticide hasn't been officially named a pesticide to be marketed commercially, it is well on its way to that stage. If this could happen, more people would hopefully look for organisms to control pests rather than chemical pesticides, and there would be a decrease in growth of algal blooms and everything else bad that chemical pesticides can cause. This would be a very good thing indeed, because I know that I find it horrible that people do bad things to the environment for their own good, and then other people are affected by it as well. This should be stopped as quickly as possible, and if nematodes can do it, they should be allowed to!
QUESTIONS:
1) Do you think these nematodes could eventually have a negative environmental impact?
2) Are there any other types of environmentally friendly pesticides?
3) If this is not approved, is there something else that could be done instead to help our crops and the environment?
Wow! that's great! this could be a great improvement for our environment. This could reduce the amount of animals killed from using pesticides and like you said, reduce algal blooms and everything else. If people start using this and it turns out to be successful, then eventually no one will be using pesticides anymore! I agree with you erika, if nematodes can do it then they should definitely be allowed!
ReplyDeleteIn response to your question, "Do you think these nematodes could eventually have a negative environmental impact? ". Anything is possible. Maybe if they end up eating the crops then we would have to go back to using pesticides but other than that i don't think there is really any way it would have a negative environmental impact.
Good evening everyone!! Very interesting choice Erika. I thought nematodes were a type of parasite and now i'm a little confused as to how a parasite is suppost to help with other pests. Isnt it eventually going to eventually get to the farmer himself and physically attack him instead of the pest? I would stick to chemicals instead of adding an invasive species because who knows what will go wrong with one of those! To answer Erika's first question, they are probably eventually going to have a negative impact on the environment simply because they are an invasive species and almost all of the time when there is an invasive species, a problem soon follows. I would provide an alternate solution besides nematodes and chemicals, but i dont really have a good understanding of what the problem is, so i dont know how to stop it. But I really think that these people should refrain from using invasive species, because that can turn out worse in the long run.
ReplyDeleteNoice topic for an article. I think we now have seen that you can't just overflow your crops to get rid of the pests and everything will be solved. You have to take time to research and find what the pest is resistant to, and what other effects the pesticide may have. In this case it was killing many bees. I hope that in the future people will take more time to think about what coulld happen before they dump pesticides on their crops.
ReplyDeleteHere is an interesting link I found dealing with more harmful effects of pesticides, but towards humans: http://www.nitn.pdx.edu/Pesticide/pest2.htm
Enjoy
wow! This is a really interesting article! It's great to see people actually using nature to solve some of their problems instead of using chemicals. I am disappointed that they, at first, went straight to chemicals. They should have started out trying to use something natural so they didnt kill all of those bees.
ReplyDeleteI have some questions of my own:
-Could these nematodes potentially hurt the environment like pesticides did?
-Do the nematodes kill anything besides the pest in question?
-Could this be the future of pesticides? why or why not?