Environment

by M.L.

 

My sister is a professor of Biology.  She does research in addition to teaching graduate students who are working for their doctorates.  Her specialty is – get this – the social behavior of spiders.  I always wondered why anyone would want to study the social behavior of spiders and to what purpose such knowledge could be put.  Well, something really unusual has come out of her research and that of her students.

One of my sister's students has been working on a project which is gaining tremendous interest in the field of agriculture:  using spiders on fields of crops instead of pesticides.

It seems that there are certain species of spiders – I have no idea of their names – that feed on the mites and insects which destroy food crops.  Letting loose a few thousands of these spiders in a field of wheat, for instance, will allow the farmers to stop using pesticides to control the destructive insects.

Think of how healthy this procedure could be!  It appears that there is already a certain species of bees, very tiny ones, being used in strawberry fields for the same purpose.  These strawberries are called "organic" berries, so when you are buying strawberries look for the little bee on the box.  You'll know that you are getting strawberries that have not been sprayed by pesticides.

It is not easy to convince the farmers of the advantages to using spiders for controlling insects as opposed to pesticides.  They have yet to realize that it is cheaper and healthier, but my sister and her students hope that it won't take long for them to understand.  It will open up a whole new field in bio-agriculture!