Our world would not survive without farmers.  As the slogan goes, no farmers, no food.  The agricultural industry is one of the most demanding industries ever.  It requires constant physical labor.  With each season, farmers hope and pray for a successful harvest, but the truth is that they are prepared to loose a sizable chunk of their yield to unforeseeable circumstances.  Too much rainfall can wash out crops while a drought can be just as devastating.  But perhaps the biggest obstacle a farmer faces is crop loss to pests.  Today farmers use IPM (Integrated Pest Management) in their fields.  IPM consists of a broad range of pest management techniques that allow a farmer to economically, effectively, and safely protect their crops.

Some IPM examples could be an insect trap that attracts and traps invasive pests in a field.  Another method is the strategic placing of bird boxes, a speaker that sends out the call of predator birds to frighten off rodents.  For larger pests like deer, farmers may put up light boxes that frighten off deer with flashes of light.  But the biggest pests of all for farmers are undoubtedly insects that are most frequently handled through chemical pesticides.

However, over the last 25 years a new trend in pest management has emerged.  It involves releasing sterile insects of an invasive species into the environment.  If the area is populated by sterile subjects the reproduction rate is greatly diminished.  Entomologists from the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University are applying this method to orchards plagued by Codling Moths.  Codling Moths (CM) are one of the worst pests that apple and pear farmers can face.  An infestation of CM can wipe out nearly 50% of an orchard, a huge economic crush.  These creatures are adaptive in that they will become dormant in harsh conditions, then begin to repopulate when needed.  They will also spawn multiple generations per season, to the point where their numbers can get out of control.  With the release of sterile CMs the hope is that the generation numbers will be less.

To do this would require someone to drive a truck up and down the rows of a orchard and manually release the sterile insects.  This works, but consumes to much time, money, and valuable work resources.  This past year Chris Adams and Larry Gut from MSU decided to see how drones could assist in this process.  Drones have proven to be very beneficial farm tools.  They can monitor crops, apply pesticides, supply hydration, and even be used as pollinators.  Why couldn’t they be used to spread sterile insects over crops as well?  By using a drone, they could release the insects over 40 acres of orchards in as little as five minutes compared to the hours it would take to do manually.

Nestle’s Gerber Baby Food became particularly interested in this form of pest management.  The insecticide standards they require for any produce used in their baby food are incredibly strict.  For them a pest management program that uses no chemical insecticides is ideal so they became collaborators in this drone insect experiment.  Chris and Larry also received funding from Project Green to see this project come to life.  The next step for a couple of entomologist was to find some drone experts.
They partnered up with M3 Consulting based out of Ohio to take over the drone operations.  As stated on their website, “The primary goal of M3 Consulting Group is aiding federal, state, academic, and corporate entities with the engineering and regulatory challenges that accompany Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS).”  One of the areas that M3 is currently focusing on is the release of sterile insects for crop management.  So with the help of Loren Dassay, a drone pilot from M3, Chris and Larry released a horde of sterile Codling Moths over an orchard.  

M3’s website goes on to explain some of the benefits of using a SIT (Sterile Insect Technique) system, “Releasing sterile insects has several advantages over chemical control.  First, pesticide resistance is increasing and the cost to develop new chemicals is skyrocketing. Second, organic products are increasing in popularity and sterile insects fall under the organic control category. Third, while resistance has been reported in every class of insecticide, it has never been reported in SIT.  Additionally, unlike chemical control, the sterile insect technique does not harm beneficial insects, so secondary pests like mites are kept in check. Finally, unlike most chemical controls, there is no human or environmental impacts from implementing SIT, so there is no re-entry period or maximum residue limits (MRLs) to worry about.

“With the use of drones this process can be done in a feasible way for farmers.  If a farmer were to release sterile insects manually they would first need to find someone who could set aside time to do so, pay them, and then spend several days treating the area.  A drone is able to get the job done quickly and cheaply.  But most importantly this is proving to be an ecofriendly, organic means of pest control.

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