New tool for battling fireants on the horizon
The Newsroom
5/6/2007

The battle against red fire ants has plagued farmers, ranchers and regular folks for decades. Now it seems the reviled pests could be in for some sickness of their own.

Officials at the Texas Extension service now say researchers have pinpointed a naturally occurring virus that kills fire ants. The virus S-I-N-V-One caught the attention of U-S Department of Agriculture researchers in Florida in 2002. The agency is now seeking commercial partners to develop the virus into a pesticide to control fire ants.

The virus was found in about 20 percent of fire ant fields, where it appears to cause the slow death of infected colonies. In the lab, the virus has proven to be self-sustaining and transmissible. Once introduced, it can eliminate a colony within three months. That's why researchers believe the virus has potential as a viable biopesticide to control fire ants.

U-S-D-A entomologist Steve Valles says that although the virus occurs naturally in fire ants, the virus needs a stressor before it becomes deadly and begins replicating within a colony.

First, though, a company must be found to grow, package and apply pesticide under field conditions.

Fire ants arrived in the United States in the 1930s and now cause six (B) billion dollars in damage annually nationwide. That includes about one-point-two (B) billion dollars in Texas alone.

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