1-21 IAN Killing Aphids

Getting to bugs from top to bottom is getting easier. Science and technology provide farmers with so many benefits that are often taken for granted and every once in a while it seems right to pause and reflect. Think about it. In the old days when growers faced the daunting challenges in the battle of the bug…insects that had a voracious appetite for all things cultivated, farmers were forced to take broad spectrum insecticides and apply them again and again, at great expense, not great effectiveness, and with noticeable impact on the environment. These days, chemical manufacturers are figuring out strategies to maximize the efficiencies of their products. For example, insect pests that suck sap out of such crops as hops, apples…pears.  Paul Pargeter of Bayer Crop Science about their product…Ultor. “It’s unique in that it moves both ways in the plant. It moves up and down so it will actually get into the root system of a plant from a foliar application.’’ 

 So, spray the leaves and the insecticide gets into the whole system of the plant and can even exterminate colonies of pests like wooly apple aphid at the level of the roots. That’s equivalent to taking antibiotics for an infection. Furthermore, and because it’s systemic, as the plant grows the insecticide moves into new tissue and performs its function.  Environmentally. “This is a product that gets absorbed into the plant tissue, and is not exposed then to other pests that might be considered predators.”