Dairy Farmers, Keep Flies Guessing by Alternating Pesticides
Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - 13:30
in Health & Medicine
Old-fashioned fly swatters may be the most foolproof housefly killer, but for dairy farms, insecticides are the practical choice. Flies spread disease and a host of pathogens that cost farms hundreds of millions of dollars in annual losses. Unfortunately, with the repeated use of the same insecticides, flies develop resistance through genetic mutations that make these products less effective. Cornell entomologist Jeff Scott and colleagues analyzed levels of resistance to six insecticides in flies, and they have identified the mutations that led to resistance in houseflies and from cattle farms in nine states around the country.
