Peaceful nuke target
Sterile insect technique
- Environment-friendly, target specific biological control method, integrated with other controls
- Target pest insects are mass-produced, sterilised, then released into the field in millions Wild insect populations are so diluted by the introduction of sterile insects that matings occur mainly between wild and sterile insects
- As a result very few fertile eggs are laid and the wild population is suppressed to below economic thresholds or totally eradicated
Peaceful use of atomic energy includes developing better methods to sterilise fruit flies, to stop them breeding.
Research entomologist, Andrew Jessup, on leave from Industry and Investment NSW, is working in a joint program between the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
He manages the fruit fly rearing and quality control section in the FAO-IAEA research facilities at Seibersdorf, near Vienna, Austria.
Mr Jessups UN position has introduced him to a global network of experts and provided the opportunity to increase his knowledge of fruit flies that threaten Australian horticultural production and trade.
If exotic fruit fly incursions occurred in Australia, his groundwork would give Industry and Investment NSW immediate access to advice about host plants, the pathways by which the insects may arrive, and the climatic conditions they need to establish and survive.
Mr Jessup is building partnerships and training programs with scientists, technicians and regulatory authorities in developed and developing countries, helping member countries with sterile insect technique (SIT) for area-wide management of fruit flies and helping them improve quarantine treatments.
His research includes comparison of two irradiation technologies for SIT and quarantine use - low energy X-rays and gamma irradiation.
"Due to increasing restrictions in international movement of radioactive material, such as Cobalt60 for use in gamma irradiation, new switch-on-switch-off technologies such as X-rays are being tested as alternatives," Mr Jessup said.
Scientists from Brazil, Chile and Pakistan have worked collaboratively on these tests with Mr Jessups group.
Area-wide integrated pest management programs incorporating SIT can help member countries reduce insecticide use and losses, and improve income by increasing productivity and facilitating trade.
Improving the efficiency of mass-rearing, and the efficacy of released sterile insects, will ensure more cost effective SIT programs in a large range of species in various countries, including the US, Australia, Spain, South Africa, Mauritius, Guatemala, Mexico, Pakistan, Israel, Kenya, Thailand, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru.
In developing and mass-rearing genetic sexing strains for SIT, technicians at Seibersdorf test and maintain laboratory colonies from which female insects can be removed, reducing the cost of SIT and increasing effectiveness by releasing only males.
Mr Jessup is also a member of the International Plant Protection Conventions Technical Panel on Phytosanitary Treatments as the FAO/IAEA representative.
The panel reviews and recommends for adoption new quarantine treatments for international trade in plant products under the Convention.
The entomology unit at Seibersdorf is in a unique position to compare the mating compatibility and also tolerance of many international pest fruit fly species to quarantine treatments at the same time in the same location.
Contact Andrew Jessup, a.jessup@iaea.org