This article was taken from the September 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="Apple-style-span">subscribing online.
Exosect, a biotech startup based in Winchester, Hampshire, may have found a way to reduce agricultural pesticide use -- by getting bees and static electricity to do all the work. "Bumblebees are great at delivering pollen directly to flowers," says Garry Pease, market development manager at the company. "So if you can use bees to deliver drugs right to each flower, you wouldn't have to spray everything with pesticides." The trick is getting the bees to deliver the medicine, which is where Exosect's Entostat technology comes in.
Based on wax from the carnauba palm plant, it becomes electrostatic when made into a powder. Insect movement generates an opposite polar charge, so when a bee passes within a few millimetres, the powder sticks to it. "The Entostat powder has very little effect on anything," says Pease, 47. "But it can be combined with ingredients that do." One example is pheromones. The yellow stem borer moth is a major rice pest -- but Entostat-bearing bees can dose the plants with pheromones as they pollinate the flowers.
This confuses the moths and discourages mating -- meaning fewer larvae to eat the plants.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
