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Newswise Virginia Tech researchers who first discovered a devastating pest in India and devised a natural way to combat it have now put an economic value on their counterattack: up to $309 million the first year and more than $1 billion over five years.
Thats the amount of damage the papaya mealybug would have wreaked on farmers and consumers in India without scientists intervention.
The papaya mealybug ripped through crops including papaya, eggplant, and tomato in southern India causing mold and stunted growth before Rangaswamy Muni Muniappan of Virginia Tech identified the pest and spearheaded the natural control program.
For a relatively modest cost of $200,000 during the first year of the intervention, devastation that would have totaled from $524 million to $1.34 billion over five years was prevented, Muniappan and other scientists report in the February issue of the journal Crop Protection.
Indias first efforts to eradicate the papaya mealybug failed, says Muniappan, who heads up Virginia Techs federally funded Integrated Pest Management Innovation Lab program, a venture that works in developing countries to minimize crop losses, increase farmer income, and decrease pesticide use. The government and farmers tried spraying pesticides, but crop losses kept getting larger. It was clear to us that this was a case not for poisons but for natural, biological controls.
The winning intervention centered on three parasitic wasps from Mexico, natural enemies of the mealybug that the U.S. government first employed in Florida after the pest spread there in the late 1990s. The wasp lays its eggs inside the mealybug larvae, and when the eggs hatch, the young wasps eat the larvae.
Virginia Techs work to stop the papaya mealybug is an important contribution to protecting U.S. crops, says Marjorie A. Hoy, a University of Florida entomologist not associated with the Virginia Tech study who was instrumental in controlling a Florida infestation.
Its impossible for regulatory agencies at the borders to inspect and remove any infested material they try, but its impossible to do it all," Hoy says. "Im happy to hear that [Virginia Tech scientists] conducted an economic analysis. That is so often missing in biological-control projects.
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Virginia Tech-Led Pest-Control Measure Saves Up to $309 Million for Indian Farmers, Consumers
Birmingham, AL (PRWEB) January 22, 2014
As the 2014 Birmingham Home & Garden Show quickly approaches, Vulcan Termite and Pest Control, Inc. has recently announced that they will be an exhibitor at the upcoming event. The company joins numerous other local businesses that will be on hand to answer attendee questions and display their service offerings during the four days of the show.
Vulcan Termite and Pest Control is set to exhibit at booth #939 within the service category of Garden, Landscape & Outdoors. David Price, owner of Vulcan Termite and Pest Control, Inc. is looking forward to the event, noting, Due to concerns over the West Nile Virus and the damage that infestations can do to a home, owners are understandably concerned about pest control. Were always happy to share our knowledge and expertise with others, and the Birmingham Home & Garden Show is a great opportunity for that.
BIRMINGHAM HOME & GARDEN SHOW DETAILS
The Birmingham Home & Garden Show will feature live events with special guests Ahmed Hassan from DIY Networks Yard Crashers and Food Network Star Emily Ellyn. Attendees will also be able to take part in showcases on the latest gardening techniques and a variety of demonstrations on the Fresh Ideas Home Stage.
Time and Dates:
February 13-16, 2014
Location:
Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex 2100 Richard Arrington Jr. Blvd. North Birmingham, AL 35203
Attendees can learn more about Vulcan Termite and Pest Control, Inc.s participation in the event, as well as information on the other show exhibitors by visiting the Exhibitors & Sponsors section of the Birmingham Home and Garden Show website.
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Vulcan Termite and Pest Control, Inc is Set to Exhibit at the Birmingham Home and Garden Show
A CARMARTHEN landlord left a live rat with receptionists at Carmarthenshire County Hall and told them to "pass it on to the chief executive" after being told the council no longer had a pest control department.
Arwen Davies, from Carmarthen, said that by not having a pest control department Carmarthenshire Council are risking a rat population boom in the county.
Miss Davies was called to one of her properties in St Catherine Street by a tenant who said the rat had crept into the garden.
Despite being pregnant, she picked the creature up and took it to County Hall for it to be handed in to the council's pest control department. She said: "I took it down to County Hall and I said please could you pass this on to your pest control department. The woman behind the desk said "we don't have pest control anymore" but she was happy to take the rat.
"I'm pregnant so I didn't really want to deal with it. I just suggested to them "maybe you could pass it on to the chief executive for me?" I'm not sure if they did or not."
Miss Davies said she was shocked to find out that the council does not have a pest control department. She has always worked hard to ensure her property is rat free but believes there could be a significant rise in vermin numbers without a council-run pest control service.
She said: "In the next three or four years they are going to be growing in numbers."
Miss Davies's partner Rhydian Thomas said they had started putting down traps to deal with the problem, but that they were not the only landlords in the town complaining about rats.
Mr Thomas said: "We have been putting traps and bait down but it is becoming a problem. "Others are having the same issues."
The council's pest control department was axed in 2011 to make savings. If residents need pests removed they now have to find a private pest control service, although the council is on hand to give advice on pest control.
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Carmarthen landlady takes live rat to county hall to give Carmarthenshire Council's chief executive Mark James
(Germantown) Pest control experts say the cold span we had a few weeks ago sent a number of rodents into homes, and as the temperature drops once again, that big problem is only getting bigger.
Don Crutchfield is our resident rodent expert. We set him loose in WREGs Wayne Carters attic after he heard the pitter-patter of feet above my head.
Pest control companies all around the area are dealing with an ton of calls right now, mostly finding roof rats.
They can have six to thirteen pups per litter. In a matter of a few months you can have a real population explosion, said Crutchfield.
Peanut butter is great, beef jerky works real well, rotten tomatoes work great, he added. Its like a buffet, you may not want salad today you may want steak.
You may have heard its good advice to close up holes and trim trees away from your home, but our expert says save your money, it just doesnt matter.
They can climb the brick. You can see a squirrel upside down on this siding and they can gnaw a hole in siding, it doesnt matter, said Crutchfield.
Once the rats get into your attic, they usually will stay there and not come into your home if its noisy.
Crutchfield said they he dont like all the busy activity in your home, and theyre as scared of you as you are of them.
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Rodent Populations In Homes Increase After Cold Snap
A recent undercover sting operation in Rancho Murieta indicates that the statewide drought has provided illegal contractors with a new angle in approaching conservation-minded property owners, according to the Contractors State License Board.
The agencys Statewide Investigative Fraud Team, with assistance from the state Department of Consumer Affairs Division of Investigation, netted 11 people accused of illegal, unlicensed home improvement contracting during the sting operation conducted Thursday in the gated community.
A $3,800 bid was given to investigators for drought-resistant landscaping by an unlicensed operator, a bid that far exceeded the legal limit of $500 in combined labor and materials charges for unlicensed contractors working in the construction industry, according to a Contractors State License Board news release.
Eleven individuals were accused of illegal contracting after seeking bids for exterior painting, fencing and landscaping jobs, and each faces misdemeanor charges for contracting without a license, officials said.
Nine suspects face additional charges of illegal advertising. Contractors must place their license number in all advertisements. Those without licenses may advertise to do jobs valued at less than $500, but the ads must state that they are not licensed contractors.
Those receiving notices to appear in Sacramento Superior Court for arraignment March 27, along with their license classifications and alleged violations:
Paul Jon Shuey of Rancho Murieta, painting an decorating, contracting without a license and illegal advertising.
Thanh Nguyen of Elk Grove, landscaping, contracting without a license and illegal advertising.
Dave Marriott of Sacramento, landscaping, contracting without a license and illegal advertising.
Dustin Lee Arana of Sacramento, painting and decorating, contracting without a license and illegal advertising.
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Undercover sting in Rancho Murieta targets illegal contractors
As many as 8,000 residential properties in Cook County, including 4,000 in Chicago, have been in foreclosure for at least three years without resolution, new data show, a situation that could further deteriorate already scarred communities.
Many of those properties that seem to get stuck or abandoned in the foreclosure process are in lower-income areas where annual household income is $49,000 or less, according to a study by Woodstock Institute.
Some of the at-risk houses, condos and apartment buildings are vacant, and the lenders have likely abandoned the foreclosure cases. Some continue to be inhabited while in foreclosure. Others are still in foreclosure while lenders consider short sales.
"You're stuck in this situation where nobody really has a long-term interest in the property," said Spencer Cowan, a vice president at the Chicago-based public policy and research group and one of the report's authors. "The titleholder knows it may be taken at any time. The servicer doesn't own it and may never own it. They may release the lien or just let it sit."
Mortgage servicers filed foreclosure cases against about 228,400 houses, condos and apartment buildings in Cook County between 2008 and 2012, according to Woodstock. Its research, though, looked only at the roughly 135,000 cases filed between 2008 and 2010 because of the long time it typically takes to process a foreclosure case through the county's court system.
Sixty percent of those cases studied completed the foreclosure process and were sold at auction between 2009 and 2012. The majority become bank-owned. An additional 34 percent were resolved in another way, such as through a mortgage loan modification, a short sale or a deed in lieu of foreclosure. The remaining 6 percent remained stuck in foreclosure three years after the original court case was filed, Woodstock concluded.
The study also found that in addition to the different treatment based on household income, properties in areas with a higher percentage of nonwhite residents were more likely to be sold at auction.
"Properties that went into foreclosure in lower-minority tracts seem to have had more alternative resolutions than properties in tracts with higher minority populations," Cowan said.
Woodstock's research used a random sample of 500 properties and extrapolated the findings based on the region's income distribution.
It estimated that nine of Chicago's 77 community areas contain more than 100 unresolved foreclosure cases. Most are those are in neighborhoods that bore the brunt of the city's foreclosure crisis. They are Ashburn, Austin, Belmont Cragin, Chicago Lawn, Humboldt Park, the Near North Side, Portage Park, Roseland and West Ridge.
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Unresolved foreclosure cases pile up in Cook County
Yves here. Im featuring this post in part as a development exercise to Cliff, a German economist who has been blogging off and on since 2011 and plans to post on a more consistent basis. He has been warned that the NC readership can be rough.
Im also of two minds about his argument. Initially I recoiled, because I think the personal service economy in the US has gone too far in some respects. To put it more precisely, the stratification of income has led to growth of the personal service economy, which serves to reinforce class distinctions. And Cliff takes up the fallacy that activities that are included in GDP are somehow better than if they occur outside the transaction economy. Vam Gogh sold only one painting over his entire life. Does that mean his output was worthless? Oh I guess it wasnt only because now auction houses make ginormous amounts from his work. But per this logic, paintings that are traded often are more valuable than ones that are displayed in museums or are owned by collectors for a long time.
Married women with kids who work in professional jobs (unless theyve managed to get a work at home gig, and I know all of one person who had that work well) are typically dependent on personal service workers, as in they need nannies (or at least some sort of part-time child care arrangement even if the kids are in school) and house cleaning. The big reason is the hours arent predictable and they often have husbands who have similar long work days. But that sort of efficiency leads to greater instability. I dont know how many times my friends have come unglued when something happens to their nanny (illness, death of parent, or they turn out to be bad news and need to be fired). Its really hard for them to manage while they are finding a replacement and difficult to find good caregivers.
And youve got the second-order problem identified by Elizabeth Warren in the Two Income Trap: having wives work means you dont have a reserve worker in case something happens to the (presumably higher income primary worker) spouses job. And two income households have higher fixed expenses (the biggie is two cars, although that would probably not be the case in Germany, where public transportation is good in big cities) but they also per above need to spend more on services, thus making it harder to save).
But the flip side is that there is rampant unemployment throughout Europe, with emigration from periphery Europe to the north in search of jobs. It would be vastly better if the surplus countries abandoned their demands for austerity. Economists have argued as a next-best that northern countries will start putting more operations in the South as their wage levels fall. But that wont provide relief any time soon. So perversely, more use by Germans of personal service workers would take up some labor slack at a time when jobs are in desperately short supply. But that seems a poor fallback to failed policies.
By Cliff, a German economist specializing in financial and macroeconomic policy analysis. Originally published at Cliffeconomics
Mowing the lawn appears to be a common pastime for Germans. Washing the car or ironing even makes it into a listing of ways to burn calories in a recent issue of the news magazine Focus. Does this make sense, economically?
Home production, i.e. productive non-market activities, are not captured in the national accounts. Time use surveys, such as the one carried out in Germany in 2001/02, show that adult Germans spend 25 hours per week on unpaid work, more than paid work on average.
Macroeconomic indicators may be reminiscent of the extent of home production in Germany. Labor participation, particularly among women, is low, possibly on the account of home keepers and stay-home mothers. Work hours have traditionally been lower, providing at least more opportunity to engage in home production also for those in jobs. These indicators distinguish Germany in particular from the US, where consumers are perceived to rather pay than doing stuff themselves. (For disclosure, Cliff uses dry cleaners, car washing, but doesnt have a lawn to mow.)
Continue reading here:
Why Germans Should Stop Mowing Their Own Lawn
WEST SACRAMENTO-
It aint easy being green, especially for lawns during a drought.
Thats where lawn painters like David Bartlett come in. His business, Xtreme Green Grass will dye your lawn green in a time when homeowners must conserve water.
People like nice yards, you know? They like to sit out front and have their coffee and tea and look at green grass, Bartlett said. Its the American dream.
Normally, business is a little slow for Bartlett.
We would probably do 10 yards a month. Now, were triple that. We probably do one or two jobs every day, he said.
The dye Bartlett sprays on lawns generally lasts around six months with regular mowing.
Some may think the idea of painting your grass green is silly, but West Sacramento Environmental Services Manager Paulina Benner doesnt think so.
It makes sense that people would do that, Benner told FOX40.
Benner notes that there are also better options than dye, like fixing leaky spigots or planting drought-tolerant grass.
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During Drought, Business Booms for Grass Painters
Former NFL star running back Eddie George has a secret passion he wants to share with America: architecture. He signed on to be a judge on a new NBC reality show called American Dream Builders, in which hell get to put his Ohio State University landscape architecture degree to good use.
This opportunity presented itself for me...not only to show the talents of a landscape architect, but also to be creative, George told the Associated Press at the Television Critics Association Press Tour.
George played in the NFL for nine years with the Tennessee Titans and Dallas Cowboys. He also won college footballs Heisman Trophy in 1995. On the side though, he had his firm, Edge Group, in Columbus, Ohio. He also earned an MBA at Northwestern University.
American Dream Builders will be hosted by designer Nate Berkus and will judge as well with George and interior decorator Monica Pedersen.
The show involves 12 contestants in two teams who have to renovate a house in each episode. In the finale, the last two contestants will have to redesign two Southern California homes to win a cash prize of $250,000, NBC said in a statement. Theres also an online contest to win a chance for the shows winner to renovate a viewers home.
It's interesting to see the contestants react to Eddie's judgment week after week, because if they don't get the details right, he notices every time, Berkus told the AP.
George noted that he has a differing view of renovations from Berkus and Petersen.
If Eddie can't watch football wherever they put the sofa, he wants to send them home, Petersen said.
American Dream Builders starts on Sunday, March 23 on NBC.
image: Wikimedia Commons
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Former NFL star Eddie George to judge on new NBC home building reality show
