Bees Battle Strawberry Mold

Scientists at Ohio State and Cornell universities say they’ve found anatural way to prevent strawberry plants from rotting. Researchers areusing honey bees to spread a natural fungicide, and they say theirmethod works better than commercial sprays. The Great Lakes RadioConsortium’s Natalie Walston has details:

Transcript

Scientists at Ohio State and Cornell Universities say they’ve found a natural way to prevent strawberry plants from rotting. Researchers are using honeybees to spread a natural fungicide, and they say their method works better than commercial sprays. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston has details.


(Bee sounds)


The symbiotic relationship between bees and many plants is one of the miracles of nature… honeybees rely on the plants for nectar, while the plants rely on the bees for pollination. Here’s how it works — as bees buzz from flower to flower, tiny grains of pollen cling to their legs. That pollen is then deposited on other flowers, completing pollination. Scientists have observed this process for years. But it was not until very recently that they came up with the idea to use this process to help stop the spread of a deadly mold that attacks strawberry plants. Ohio State University Assoc Prof Joe Kovach was the lead researcher on the project.


“There’s a disease of strawberries called grey mold. And, one of the things we learned is the best time to control this disease is during the bloom period. And, we’re trying to find alternative methods to pesticides. So Kovach, along with researchers at Cornell University, decided to try to harness the power of bees to stop the mold. They took a naturally occurring fungus called trichoderma, which eats the mold. And, they placed trichoderma spores on a tray in front of the bee hives”


“As the bees exited the hives, they kind of walked through this foot bath of spores. And, as they visited the flowers, we, uh, wanted to see if they could deliver enough to the flowers, and, if they’d delivered enough to give us control. And, essentially, it works.


Kovach says in their experiment, they were able to reduce the number of infected strawberry plants by 72 percent. That’s compared to 40 percent when the same fungicide was only sprayed on the plants.


“If you put it right where the flower is, and, right where the disease occurs, and you’re not, when you spray out this biological control agent, you’re spraying it out on leaves, you’re spraying it on the ground, so you’re wasting a lot. Whereas the bees deliver it right to the source.


This type of pest-management agriculture, known as integrated pest management, or IPM, has been producing results since the beginning of farming. That’s according to Cornell University IPM program assistant director Kurt Petzold.


“A lot of times people think that, uh, the only thing farmers do is spray pesticides to control pests. and, uh, what we try to do is encourage farmers to think about other tactics, too. we might release a natural enemy that would attack a pest, an undesirable pest.


Petzold points out there are drawbacks to using living creatures for pest management. Sometimes weather is a factor. If it’s cold, bees won’t deliver the fungicide. Also, Petzold says using bees to spread trichoderma could affect honey production.


“I think the one concern the Environmental Protection Agency has is the fungus that’s being delivered to the strawberries to control the undesirable fungus could wind up in the bees honey. And, it’s unknown whether that has any, uh, effect on consumers of the honey.


While it’s still undetermined how trichoderma affects humans, OSU researcher Kovach says the health of the hive is not in jeopardy. Kovach’s bee delivery technique, meanwhile, is still awaiting approval by the Environmental Protection Agency. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Natalie Walston.