BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Local scientists have found a way to control the ticks responsible for passing Lyme disease on to humans. A new natural pesticide, derived from a strain of fungus that is deadly to the black-legged tick could help keep tick populations under control.
Unlike some synthetic pesticides that can be dangerous for more than just ticks, the fungus does not harm honeybees, earthworms or other beneficial insects.
The product was developed by a Fairfield-based company that was bought out by the Danish industrial biotechnology company Novozymes.
The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station’s field trials of the fungus helped obtain federal Environmental Protection Agency registration. Novozymes has built a plant in Canada to mass produce the product, Tick-Ex.
It will be commercially available in 2014, said Kirby Stafford, the station’s vice director and chief entomologist.
“A lot of people do have their yards sprayed with pesticides, and they are quite effective, because synthetic materials will give you an 85 to 100 percent success rate,” Stafford said. “But there are a special number of people who don’t want to use them. The (organic product) may be slightly less effective, but it’s giving people options. It certainly would fit in to organic land care.”
The pesticide is made of the F52 strain of the Metarhizium anisopliae fungus, which occurs naturally in soil. The station tested it on residential properties in northwestern Connecticut and found up to 74 percent fewer ticks after treatment.
Although rates dipped slightly in 2010, the number of people in Connecticut with Lyme disease has been steadily rising, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Connecticut has the nation’s highest number of cases, relative to population. The first symptoms of the disease include headache, fever and rashes. But if left untreated, the disease can spread to the joints, heart and nervous system.
The overabundant deer population is one reason the disease is so widespread, according to the state Department of Public Health. Black-legged ticks feed on large mammal hosts, which in Connecticut are usually deer.
Many Lyme disease experts have said the solution is to cull the deer, but research shows that is only really effective when the deer are culled to very low numbers, said Louis Magnarelli, director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.
The station has researched a number of methods to control Lyme disease.
It found nootkatone, a component of essential oil from Alaskan Yellow Cedar and grapefruit is toxic to ticks, and is highly effective.
As tests wind down, there is a small chance a company will pick it up because the cedar oil is only produced at a grade suitable for cosmetics and foods, making it expensive. Until production is scaled up for more commercial uses, it won’t be used to eradicate ticks, Stafford said. The station has also tested a garlic spray product, which suppresses tick activity for around two weeks. Scientists in Maine discovered that a rosemary oil product, EcoEXEMPT, will eradicate ticks for at least two weeks.
The nationwide tick control research community is pretty small, Stafford said. Between 2001 and 2012, the state Department of Health and the agricultural experiment station have received a little more than $2 million for public outreach and tick control research from the CDC. The CDC was expected to hand out two tick control grants in 2011, but based on available funds ended up only distributing one, which went to a research laboratory in Rhode Island.
Studies have found the fungus strain is also effective in killing bed bugs, but it won’t be marketed for that use just yet.
“I can’t see spreading the spores of this fungus into a bedroom,” Stafford said. “But it begs for a formulation of how you expose it to just the targets and not the rest of the environment.”
(c)2012 the Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, Conn.)
Distributed by MCT Information Services
Adding a fungus that kills ticks! Sounds great. But what else does it kill? What is the collatoral damage? Just askin! As we have bats with fungus that are dying off and we need our bats. Bats eat how many pesty insects a day? Got to weigh out pros and cons.
Agreed. It would set many minds at ease if it is proved harmless to more than other insects. But it’s a start, and that is a good thing. Lyme disease is no joke, that’s for sure. In the meantime, use a good repellent, tuck your pant cuffs into your boots, keep you arms and head covered legs. As we know, deer thrive in mixed field, thicket and wooded habitat which is the typical situation in central, coastal and southern Maine where the Lyme threat is the greatest. Rather than be anxious about the low deer populations in northwestern and parts of downeast Maine, folks in those areas might be relieved instead.
Did you even bother to read the article? “Unlike some synthetic pesticides that can be dangerous for more than
just ticks, the fungus does not harm honeybees, earthworms or other
beneficial insects.” Duh
I haven’t seen any new item on the market that doesn’t have collatoral damage. Spray it around and see if it doesn’t kill something besides just a tick. Ticks aren’t so easy to kill. In order to kill a tick, I think it may kill at least one other insect. I hope I am wrong. I’ll get a can and spray it all over. They say…… They say alot when they are marketing a new item. Saying, seeing is believing. Time will tell. If they remove it, we will know, oops it didn’t work right. We see too many safe oops. They also say formula is safe, then we get recalls every so often, oops, spit it up baby!!!!!
What an erratic story. It sounded like they want to produce a pesticide from the fungus. Why not introduce the fungus into lawns to naturally produce the toxin year after year?
From the article:
““A lot of people do have their yards sprayed with pesticides, and
they are quite effective, because synthetic materials will give you an
85 to 100 percent success rate,” Stafford said. “But there are a special
number of people who don’t want to use them. The (organic product) may
be slightly less effective, but it’s giving people options. It certainly
would fit in to organic land care.”
The pesticide is made of the F52 strain of the Metarhizium anisopliae
fungus, which occurs naturally in soil. The station tested it on
residential properties in northwestern Connecticut and found up to 74
percent fewer ticks after treatment.”
*crossing my fingers there aren’t any religious people against fungus*
As long as the scientists involved were home schooled and didn’t go to a liberal college, it will be fine.
Funny, not going to a liberal college what are the odds of that happening.
All colleges are too liberal.
What? Where are you coming from? This statement makes zero sense.
Well, there is that whole war on science thing going on spawning global warming deniers and evolution naysayers for example.
Pretty much.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/370183/january-06-2011/bill-o-reilly-proves-god-s-existence—neil-degrasse-tyson
Ridiculas statement Dominofrost. I don’t think you understand science or liberism.
or college
God put the fungus there and we found a beneficial, non-mind altering purpose for it so I dont think anyone will have a problem with it.
if it was a woman’s right to fungus, they’d be all over it.
i believe lyme is most present in connecticut cause some irresponsible people tested ticks and let many go and so the infection spread there and is traveling all over. what is scary is to find out what effect this fungus will have on other things like maybe it will kill ticks and then infect the host with something new and stronger for us to deal with.does anyone know what happened to the ticks from the research center in old lyme when it closed
I don’t know about that, you have any thing to back those facts up. I think that lyme disease and the ticks that carried the disease have been present in this world for a very long time, and that with colonization and new practices in land use the tick populations were dispersed. The current spread of lyme is more likely a resurgence in the tick population. If the research center had any credibility they would of froze their specimens and killed them or given them to another facility for research.
I agree.
Black footed ticks and the Lyme bacterium most likely have been around for many thousands of years. While I cannot speak to the forest history of northern New England, in southern New England, Native Americans used to routinely burn the forest floor over to improve small game hunting, fire being very destructive to tick populations that live in the lower brush and sedges mainly. Then too, Natives had large areas open for agriculture. As well, wolves and cougars helped keep deer populations in check, as again, did Native hunting. European settlement, though it drove the cougars and wolves out, and ended the burning of the understory, also kept ticks in check by clearing even more land for agriculture and continuing hunting pressure on most larger mammals such as deer.
Only now, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, are conditions ripe for tick explosions, possibly for the first time in many thousands of years.
As I am now spending more and more time in northern New England (Aroostook) myself, where the moose population is fairly large, I wonder, do moose spread black-footed ticks around as well as deer do? I ask because it seems the moose population in northern Maine is on the rise, relative to deer populations.
Are moose too tall for easy raking up of black-footed ticks as the former walk around? Can the moose hunters and wildlife folk report in, do you all see a lot of attached ticks to moose the way deer taken in places like MA and CT during hunting season are observed to be covered with?
That is very interesting about the moose, i wonder if their habits make a difference, where moose spend a good amount of time in swamp and mud (at least as far as I’ve seen), does that make a difference in their ability to repel ticks? I do recall seeing a special on national geographic I think it was, where moose ticks were so prevalent on the moose that it was detrimental to the moose and would cause them to act erratically, and in many cases need to be put down.
Ahh, that’s an interesting point about swamping, mud, and being in water more.
Hmmm.
Moose also carry the tick but they don’t travel to Southern New England and thus they didn’t bring the problem to Maine.
http://bangor-launch.newspackstaging.com/2011/12/02/outdoors/woodsmen-butchers-say-maine-moose-deer-crawling-with-ticks/
This article from December should answer your questions….
i lived in connecticut and remember when they discovered lyme it was named that because of the location of the lab. it was either in old lyme or just lyme one of the two. yes it has been around for a long time but it came from the midwest after people were getting sick they started to research the cause of the peoples sickness and that is what they named it. I have no evidence what they did with the ticks but i do know that it seems to have started to spread from ct. to all surrounding states. Then in large numbers people started getting sick and the ticks there are overrun you can not go into the woods or lay in the grass for even a minute if you do chances are you will have a tick on you clothes somewhere.I also have a sister from ct with a very bad case of lyme sometimes she goes near blind and has face mussels that act like bells palsey then she has to take large amounts of antibiotics for a couple months and she improves. she was told she can not be cured but if you catch the tick when they bite you if it was infected you can be cured with antibiotic intake doxycycline is what should be taken if biten by a tick even just to be safe it is recommended.usually there is a large red ring from an infected tick but it is better to be safe than sorry….this stuff i do know for sure hope i cleared something up
In a message dated 3/4/2012 11:55:35 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, writes:
(http://disqus.com/)
Kired wrote, in response to bdymaniam:
I don’t know about that, you have any thing to back those facts up. I
think that lyme disease and the ticks that carried the disease have been
present in this world for a very long time, and that with colonization and new
practices in land use the tick populations were dispersed. The current
spread of lyme is more likely a resurgence in the tick population. If the
research center had any credibility they would of froze their specimens and
killed them or given them to another facility for research.
_Link to comment_
(http://disq.us/5sve3a?imp=d39a3aa2-015b-4f38-9d0c-a3a8528200e5&thread=598092042&zone=email_notification&event=shortener_click)
Google “Plum Island Lyme Disease”
The DNA sequence for Lyme disease has been found in a variety of historical entities, in fact I think they recovered a sequence of it from one of the remarkably well preserved prehistoric man found in Europe. What is likely is that without knowing what to call the disease and that it affects from the disease vary over time it was mis-diagnosed as other illnesses, even though it was in fact Lyme disease. That is not to say that the company doing the research doesn’t have any blame if they were careless with a sample and it escaped to infect a host or carriers, but it was on it’s way for a resurgence whether you want to believe it or not. You can Google the origins of Lyme disease and find that in a multitude of studies where DNA sequencing has shown that the disease was present in the past before we came to know it as what it is today, genetics doesn’t lie.
It has been discovered that “Oetzie” the ice man “mummy” found in the Alps years ago suffered from Lyme Disease. Although during his time, I am sure it went by a different name. I am not saying that corporations and governments are not capable of messing with mother nature, doing evil and causing great harm, just probably not this time.
That is fascinating, very interesting stuff. I wonder if the Alaskan Yellow Cedar is on the do not plant list here in Maine, if it has any effect as a tick deterrent it would be a good plant for lawn edges. Hopefully the fungus derived pesticide doesn’t have too many side effects or negative impact and isn’t prohibitively costly.
there are no laws regulating what you can plant in maine, excepting for growing drugs, there may be laws against selling a plant in the state but you are free to go out and acquire it.
In fact it is the lack of laws ans knowledge that is causing invasives to spread in the state – the little shops with the cute orange berried for wreathes and the DOT buying hay south and using it in the north with many seeds of problem plants
Ribes species like currants and gooseberries are prohibited in most of Maine due to the White Pine Blister Rust that they can promote.
It’s also now illegal to bring firewood into Maine or most other New England states, as invasive insects can easily hide in the bark. (Most states, however, do allow kiln-dried firewood, which is exposed to high, sanitizing temperatures in the drying process into the state.)
It’s been illegal to bring wood across interstate lines for a number of years. God forbid you try to bring any into California.
Im sorry that is not enitrely true. Maybe you cant sell or grow them commercially but a citizen can plant them if they want and can buy them via mail. Currants red & skunk also grow wild and are all over the state. Gooseberries can be found in the wild also but to a lesser degree.
True about host for blister rust and governments have had eradication programs
sorry but that is not entirely true. There may be limits for commercial growing or sale but if you want to plant them for home use or just plant them you can , you can buy them mail order. There is no prohibition for private use. reference my comment above about selling.
Yes on the blister rust and there have been eradication programs- but skunk and red gooseberries are found in the wild all across the state, and gooseberries are found in the wild in the south.
It isn’t just large animals that carry the ticks and therefore lyme disease. It’s smaller creatures such as mice and squirrels as well.
… and dogs and cats :(
Finally science is working for the environment instead of against it such as Monsanto’s Crew who are actively destroying our food and the environment!
they could treat it like the mold issues in Maine..not at all..no one up here gives a rat’s patooty, kids diagnosed by dr’s with respitory issues..mold all over walls/mattress’s..noone cares
I knew an old lady that swallowed a fly, I don’t know why she swallowed a fly, I guess she’ll die…
Before releasing a new strain of fungus in Maine, I hope they check things more thoroughly than they did when air dropping lady bugs and trying to reintroduce Caribou (That was a funny-sad event!). Eco-system balances are easily disturbed and hard to re-stabilize. Can you say pet rabbits in Australia!
Let’s just hope they start production and help get rid of the ticks. Not only does is affect humans, but think of the poor deer and moose that have thousands of these on them and die a slow horrible death. Instead of bailouts, use money for this kind of project.
Ticks are animals too… They only attack the sick animals that the others won’t… BOO HOO HOO
Please send money (your local PETA representative.)
(sorry… my sarcasm filter is busted.)
everyone said I was a fun guy
I suggest utilizing Guinea Fowl. They are ferocious tick eaters. Natural also.