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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, 01 August 2001 Homegrown Zea-Later Tackles the Toughest Corn Pests Organically Area corn farmers are mixing homegrown ergonomics and a healthy dose of almost-lost farm lore to tackle one of the corn season's most harmful pests, thanks to a patent developed by UMass Extension Vegetable Specialist Ruth Hazzard and her students. Hazzard and her Extension colleagues have long been active in teaching farmers Integrated Pest Management (IPM) as one way to control the corn earworm, which is the primary pest of sweet corn in the Northeast. Many Massachusetts growers have reduced their use of pesticides by 40-percent by using IPM. Corn earworms, however, are a powerful foe. The adults moths migrate from the South, and lay their eggs on the corn silk. Hatching caterpillars travel down the silk strands and feed on the ear. Once they are in the corn ear, they are protected from insecticides. In order to prevent the earworms from reaching the ear, growers may have to treat their corn every three to five days to prevent economic disaster, notes Hazzard. "Sweet corn IPM includes using traps to monitor the moth populations and scouting of fields for damage on a regular basis," says Hazzard, "Knowing what is in the field and what is not in the field can save the grower a lot of time and money, as well as reducing pesticide applications." About 10 years ago, Hazzard was talking to a group of sweet corn farmers who were looking for alternatives to pesticides, when one farmer told her that in the 1940’s, before synthetic pesticides became popular, farmers used mineral oil to control corn pests. Hazzard began investigating this idea, finding some old research papers and trying out mineral oil on corn for herself. It worked – but that left the hefty challenge of finding a way to apply the oil. Hazzard gathered a group of Hampshire College students and a UMass mechanical engineering student who took on the challenge of developing a reliable, reasonably priced tool that would deliver oil to corn silks. A major consideration was its ergonomic design, to reduce hand fatigue. The team obtained funding from the Lemelson Foundation for Invention and Innovation through Hampshire College and from the UMass IPM program. The result was the "Zea-Later" (a play on the scientific name for the corn earworm, Helicoverpa zea), a hand-held gun-like device that delivers a set amount of oil with a pull of a trigger. Hazzard and three of her colleagues patented the device, found a manufacturer and a distributor. With the Zea-Later, applying 0.5 ml per ear (about 5 drops from an eye dropper), two gallons of oil will treat an acre of corn and only one application is needed. Including labor to apply the oil, this works out to about $120 per acre, comparable to conventional growing, which may require 3 to 6 applications at $25 per acre for earworm control. Hazzard says, "This is technology that is appropriate for relatively small diversified farms." Organic corn growers have been quick to embrace the Zea-Later. Organic growing standards restrict farmers to using only naturally occurring substances. Mineral oil, a petroleum product, is banned, but corn and soybean oil works just as well. Hazzard has also found that adding a caterpillar-attacking bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (or BT), to the mix gives better results. Jack Manix, who grows 30 acres of organic vegetables including 10 acres of sweet corn in Dummerston, Vermont, calls the Zea-Later a great tool for organic growers. "The first year I used the Zea-Later was a bad year for earworms. Where we used the Zea-Later, we had 5% damage in our corn and 75% where we didn’t use it. That sold me on it right away." PHOTO: UMass Technician Pam Westgate applies oil to corn silk with the Zea-Later. Contact: Ruth Hazzard (413) 545-3696 Additional information: ARCHIVE: |
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