Insect sterilization methods technique

Some forms of pest resistance involve. hanging the pest rather than the host plant. The best example of autocidal resistance is the sterile male technique used to control. nsects. Scientists rear thousands of males of a particular insect species under controlled conditions, then sterilize them with x-rays. These sterilized males are released in the wild to mate with females of the same species. Since the males are sterile, mated females do not produce eggs, causing populations to drop drastically over time. (The technique is restricted to insect species with females that only mate once.) This method is most successful when the sterile males compete aggressively with the natural population of fertile males. A working example of autocidal resistance occurs at the border of Mexico and California, where sterile males of the Mexican fruit fly are released to help control populations and to prevent the pests from entering California. 

Construction of sex-linked genetic markers in major economic pests will facilitate expansion of genetic control methods such as the sterile insect technique and backcross sterility in Heliothis virescens. 

Standing advantages of the technique is that, unlike chemical methods, it becomes more efficient as the population of the pest is reduced because of the increasing ratio of radiation-sterilized insects to fertile ones. There are, however, the following requirements for a successful application of the technique ... 

Between 1952 and 1953, scientists of the U.S. Department of Agriculture conducted successful field experiments with a revolutionary method of insect control (Baumhover, 1966). The principle of this new technique was simple the reproductive capacity of an insect population is inversely related to the ratio between the sterile and fertile members of the popula-... 

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