Transcript

TEDxTelAviv - Shimon Steinberg - Bugs are Good for your Health

foreign how many of you actually love bugs just raise your hand love bugs I mean maybe not love fond of bugs okay well I would say roughly around 10 something like that well that's not bad at all well I'm a bug lover myself not from childhood by the way but rather late when I bachelored majoring in Zoology in Tel Aviv University I kind of fell in love with bugs and then within zoology I took the course of the discipline of Entomology the science of insects and then I thought myself how can I be practical or or help in the science of Entomology and then I moved to the world of plant protection plant protection from insects from bed bugs and then within plant protection I came into the discipline of biological pest control which we actually Define as the use of living organisms to reduce populations of noxious plant pests so it's a whole discipline in plant protection that aiming at reduction of chemicals and biological Pest Control by the way or these good bugs that we are talking about they exist in the world for thousands and thousands of years for a long long time but only in the last 120 years people started or people knew more and more how to exploit or how to use this biological control phenomenon or in fact natural control phenomenon to their own needs because biological control phenomena you can see it in your backyard just take a magnifying glass you see what I have here that's a magnifier times 10. yeah times 10 you just open it you just twist leaves and you see a whole new world of minute insects or little spiders of one millimeter one and a half two meter millimeters Longs and you can distinguish between the good ones and the bad ones so this phenomenon of of natural control exists literally everywhere here in front of this building I'm sure just have a look at the plants so it's everywhere and we need to know how to exploit it uh well let us go just hand by hand and browse through just a few examples what is a past what damage it actually inflicts on the plant and what is the natural enemy the biological control agent or the good bug that we are talking about in general I'm going to talk about insects and spiders or mites let us call them insects those six-legged organisms and spider or mites the eight-legged organisms let's have a look at that here is a pest devastating pest a spider mite because it has a lot of webbing like a spider you see the the mother in between and two daughters probably on the left and right and a single egg on the right hand side and then you see what kind of damage it can inflict on your right hand side you can you can see a cucumber leaf and in the middle cotton leaf and on the left a tomato leaf with these little stippling they can literally turn from green to White because of the sucking piercing a mouth parts of those spiders But Here Comes nature that provides us with the good ones with a good spider this is a predatory mind just as small as the spider mite by the way one millimeter two millimeter long not more than that running quickly hunting chasing the spider mites and here you can see this lady in action on your left hand side just pierces sucks the body fluids on the left hand side of the pest Mite and after five minutes this is what you see just typical dead corpse shriveled sucked out dead corpse of the spider mite and next to it to satiated individuals of predatory mice by the way a meal for them for 24 hours are about five individuals of the spider mites of the bed mites and or 15 to 20 eggs of the past mites by the way they are hungry always yeah and there is another example aphids by the way it's springtime now in Israel when temperature rises sharply you can see those bad ones those aphids all over the plants in your hibiscus in your Lantana on the young fresh foliage of the spring flush so-called by the way with aphids you have only females like Amazons females giving rise to females giving rise to other females no males at all parthenogenesis what's so-called and they are very happy with that apparently yeah and here you can see the damage those aphids secrete some sticky sugary liquid called honeydew and this just clogs the upper part of the plant here you see a typical cucumber leaf that turned actually from green to Black because of a black fungus mold which is covering it and here comes the Salvation through this parasitic wasp here we are not talking about a predator here we are talking about a parasite not a two-legged parasite but an eight leg parasite of course yeah this is a parasitic wasp again two meters long slender a very quick and sharp flyer and here you can see this predator or sorry parasite in action like in an acrobatic maneuver she stands vis-a-vis in front of the victim on the right hand side bending its abdomen and inserting a single egg into the body fluids of the aphid by the way the aphid tries to escape she she kicks and and bites and secretes different liquids but nothing will happen in fact only the egg of the parasitoid will be inserted into the body fluids of the aphid and after a few days depends on upon temperature the egg will hatch and The larva of this parasite will eat the aphid from the inside and this is all natural this is all natural this is not fiction nothing at all again in your backyard in your backyard yeah absolutely and these are this is and this is the end result this is the end result mummies m-u-n-y this is the visual result of a dead aphid covering inside or encompassing inside in fact uh developing parasitoid after a few minutes you see halfway out the birth is almost complete you can see it by the way in different movies Etc and it takes just a few minutes and if this is a female she will immediately mate with a male and off she goes because time is very short this female can lives only three to four days and she needs to give rise to around 400 eggs that means she has 400 bad aphids to put her eggs into their body fluids and this is of course not the end of it there is a whole wealth of other natural enemies and this is just the last example again we'll start first with the test the thrips by the way all these weird names huh I I didn't bother you with the Latin names of these creatures okay just the popular names but this is a nice slender very bad pest if you can see this sweet peppers this is not just an exotic ornamental sweet pepper this is a sweet pepper which is not consumable because it is suffering from a viral disease transmitted by those three adults and here comes the natural enemy minute pirate bug minus because it is rather small yeah here you can see the adult black and two young ones and again in action this adult pierces the trips sucking it within just several minutes just going to the other prey continuing all over the place and if we spread those minute pirate bugs the good ones for example in a sweet pepper plot they go to the flowers and look this flower is flooded with predatory bugs with the good ones after wiping out the bad ones the trips so this is a very positive situation by the way no harm to the developing fruit no harm to the fruit set everything is just fine under these circumstances but again the question is here you saw them on a one-to-one basis uh they passed the natural enemy what we do is actually this in the Northeast Israel in kibbous deliao there is a facility that mass produces those natural enemies in other words what we do there we amplify we amplify the natural control of the biological control phenomenon and in 30 000 square meters of state-of-the-art greenhouses there we are mass producing those predatory mites those minute pirate bugs those parasitic wasps etc etc many different parts by the way they have a very nice landscape you see the Jordanian mountains on one hand and the Jordan Valley on the other hand and a good mild winter and a nice hot summer which is an excellent condition to mass produce those creatures and by the way mass production it is not genetic manipulation there are no GMOs genetically modified organisms whatsoever we take them from nature and the only thing that we do we give them the optimal conditions under the greenhouses or in the climate rooms in order to proliferate multiply and reproduce and that's what we get in fact you see under a microscope you see under your left hand on the upper left corner you see the single predatory Mite and this is a whole bunch of predatory mites you see in this ample you see this one I have one gram of those predatory mites one grams 80 000 individuals 80 000 individuals are good enough to control one acre four thousand square meters of a strawberry plot against spider mites for the whole season of almost one year and we can produce from this believe you me several dozens of kilograms on an annual basis so this is what I call amplification of the phenomenon and no we just we do not disrupt the balance on the contrary because we bring it to agricultural plot where the balance or was already disrupted by the chemicals here we come with those natural enemies in order to reverse a little bit the wheel and to bring more Natural Balance to the agricultural plot by reducing those chemicals that's the whole idea and what is the impact in this table you can actually see what is an impact of a successful biological control by good bugs for example in Israel where we employ more than 1 000 hectares 10 000 dunams in Israeli terms of biological Pest Control in sweet pepper under protection 75 percent of the pesticides were actually reduced and the Israeli strawberries even more 80 of the pesticide especially those aimed against pest mites in strawberries so the impact is very strong and there goes the question especially if you ask Growers agriculturists why biological control why good bugs by the way the number and the number of answers you get equals to the number of people you ask but if we go for example to This Place Southeast Israel the Arava Valley along the Great Rift Valley where the really top-notch the pearl of the Israel agriculture is located especially under Greenhouse conditions or on the screen house conditions if you drive all the way to a lot you see this just in the middle of the desert and if you zoom in you can definitely watch this grandparents with their grandchildren distribute the natural enemies the good bugs instead of wearing special clothes and gas masks and apply chemicals so safety with respect to the application this is number one answer that we get from Growers why biological control number two many Growers are in fact petrified from the idea of resistance that the pests will become resistant to the chemicals just in our case that bacteria become resistant to antibiotics it's the same and it can happen very quickly fortunately in the biological control or in the natural control resistance is extremely rare it hardly happens because this is evolution this is the natural issue unlike resistance which happens in the case of chemicals and thirdly public demand public demand the more the public the public demands reduction of chemicals more Growers become aware of the fact they should wherever they can and wherever possible replace the chemical control with biological control even here there is another grower you see very interested in the bugs the bad ones and the good ones wearing this magnifier already on on her head just walking safely in her crop finally I want to get to actually to my vision or in fact to my dream because you see this is the reality have a look at the Gap if we take the overall turnover of the biocontrol industry worldwide is 250 million dollars and look at the overall pesticide industry in all the crops throughout the world I think it's times 100 or something like that 25 billion so it is a huge gap to bridge so actually how can we do it how can we Bridge or let's say narrow this grab this Gap in the course of the Years first of all we need to find more robust good and reliable biological Solutions more good bugs that we can either Mass produce or actually conserve in the field secondly to create even more intensive and strict public demand to reduction of chemicals in the agricultural fresh produce and thirdly also to increase awareness by The Growers to the potential of this industry and this Gap really Narrows step by step it does narrow you know I started with a personal note I think I will end with a personal note I'm a marathon runner and this week on Thursday I'm with a lovely group of people that we organize a long distance relay race 210 kilometers from the Lebanese border all the way to the Israel Valley groups of people will run relay eight people six people four two and even one all this distance and I see a lot of similarities between this type of phrase to the things that I do with biological control because first of all you run this race in nature what I do in biological control if in fact many times I go out there also the major to look for my good bugs secondly this relay race is a teamwork and also in the case of biological control it's also a teamwork groups of people studying researching implementing collaboration with Growers with the public it's a whole teamwork and thirdly it's a long and Winding Road even in the marathon you stumble fall rise and continue you know how many times we we stumble and fail in the case of biological control but we actually never gave up so I think my last slide is all we are saying we can actually sing it give nature a chance so I'm saying it on behalf of all the biocontrol practitioners and implementers in Israel and abroad really give nature a tank a chance thank you thank you