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Re: Christy's on Bt

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

Mosquito control district personnel all over South Texas have been using Bt
israeliensis for air spraying of mosquito larvae for the last three years
with excellent results.  It was particularly rewarding for residents,
because the great success of the Bt spray did away with weekly Malathion
spraying by truck and air.  That chemical is strong enough on its own, but
the heat and humidity of the region potentiated it--creating an even more
toxic chemical.  That area already has one of the largest clusters of
childhood leukemia in the country--which is attributable to Malathion.

One warning on Bt: use it sparingly.  Like any synthetic or organic
chemical, it will lose its effectiveness if insects adapt to it.  That's
what is going to happen with all the Bt corn and other crops.
Doreen Howard
Central Illinois, a 16-month refugee from hot, humid, mosquito infested
South Texas

-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Teuton <fteuton@total.net>
To: Square Foot Gardening List <sqft@listbot.com>
Date: Thursday, November 11, 1999 8:36 PM
Subject: Re: Christy's on Bt


>Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html
>
>
>. I think I read somewhere that BT even kills mosquito larva, but I
>>>wouldn't know what to spray it on to kill them?
>>
>>Well, I don't know anything about Bt on mosquitoes.  Originally, Bt was
>>billed as solely killing the larval stages of lepidopts (butterflies and
>>moths).  In recent years, I have seen posts on the 'Net suggesting that it
>>works on some beetles.
>
>
>I know of three varieties of Bt---kurstaki, san diego, and israeliensis
>(latest taxonomy may give different names) The first is the caterpillar
>killer, effective against most butterfly and moth larvae. The second is the
>beetle bopper, and what has been incorporated into the genetically
>engineered Bt potatoes (the Bt corn whose pollen kills monarch butterfly
>larvae is the first kind).
>
>Third, Bt israeliensis, is effective against the aquatic larvae of
>mosquitoes and black flies, and is available in these little floating donut
>things called dunks for use in ponds, rain barrels, and the like...
>
>A colleague of mine, Paul Maloney, who is an entomologist and a helicopter
>pilot, participated in a program some years ago to reduce mosquito and
black
>fly levels around a Canadian Armed Forces base, with good success, using Bt
>israeliensis....if I recall, they applied the toxin extracted from cultures
>of the bacterium, and not live bacteria themselves....
>
>Doubtless a bit of web searching will reveal much about all this....
>
>
>Frank Teuton
>


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