A Promising Hope for Green Insecticides

A Promising Hope for Green Insecticides

You may not know that Stink-Bugs and their evolutionary cousins the Harlequin bugs (also stinky) are responsible for significant damage to large commercial crops.  The good news is scientists may have figured a way to use their pheromones against them.

Researchers have discovered that a single Stink-Bug can alert an entire community of Stink-Bugs as to the location of rich sources of food.  How do these bugs do this?  The answer lies in pheromones.  Once a single Stink-Bug finds a wholesome plant to devour with the rest of its community, the one Stink-Bug will release powerful pheromones that other Stink-Bugs sense and instinctually know to be a sign of dinner.

These pheromones, as scientists are discovering, can be used to lure Stink and Harlequin bugs away from cash yielding crops and into other plant life that is of no concern to humans.  Synthesizing these pheromones is not a difficult process and scientists are hoping to produce such pheromones on a mass scale to use as an environmentally friendly insecticide.

What do you think of this new, stinky insecticide? Do you think this could revolutionize the world of insecticides?