Isaura Daniel*
isaura.daniel@anba.com.br
São Paulo – Researchers from Brazil and Syria are working to find more efficient solutions to the fight against cydia pomonella, a pest that attacks fruit trees, mainly apples and pairs. Both countries are part of an international group of researchers that also includes representatives from Chile, South Africa, Austria, the United States, Argentina, Armenia, Switzerland and Canada. They have meetings every one and a half years and exchange information about the advances each country has made in the fight against the insect.
The group is sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The first phase of the project was concluded in March, with a meeting in the city of Vacaria, in the southeastern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Now, according to Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) researcher Adalécio Kovaleski, who is in charge of the project in Brazil, the group is going to request subsidies and support from the IAEA to proceed with the cooperation.
The work is connected to the IAEA as the researchers consider sterilization through atomic energy one of the possible routes to eliminate cydia pomonella. The male insects are sterilized with Cobalt 60 and are then freed into nature to copulate with the females. As the females only accept to copulate once during their lives, considering that they are already fecundated, they do not copulate with other males. This way, the pest communities are shrinking.
According to Kovaleski, there is a biofactory in Canada that generates 15 million insects a week. The country has been working with this method for 12 years. One of the main objectives of researchers sharing experiences is spreading the technique. Syria, according to the researcher, is already starting to develop the method. The group includes two researchers connected to the Atomic Energy Commission in Syria and universities in the country. South Africa, according to Kovaleski, has already imported sterile insects for experiments and Argentina is starting the production of insects.
In Brazil, the researchers are negotiating the possibility of producing the sterile pest at a biofactory in the city of Petrolina, in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, which currently works with fruit flies. Different from other countries, according to Kovaleski, in Brazil the pest is not in commercial areas, but just in urban zones, like in gardens. The intention of using the sterile insect, in the case, is to stop it migrating to plantations and to definitively eliminate the pest in urban zones.
According to Kovaleski, cydia pomonella was fond in the cities of Lajes, in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, and in the cities of Vacaria, Bom Jesus and Caxias do Sul, in Rio Grande do Sul. The method used to date to fight the pest is the removal and replacement of the trees for other varieties of fruit. In the 1997/1998 crop, when the work started, 22,000 insects were collected. In the 2006/2007 crop just 220 insects were found. The objective is to use sterile insects to finally eliminate the pest.
Syria, like Brazil, is a producer of apples. The pest attacks the plantations in spring and summer and rests in winter. This is why the countries with hot climates are affected. Since the group of researchers was established, around six years ago, there have been meetings in Canada, South Africa, Argentina and Brazil.
*Translated by Mark Ament
