Bug-busters

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Farmers once fought off insects with sulfur, arsenic and mercury compounds. Today, the buzzing, crawling critters are held at bay with advanced insecticides meant to protect vegetation without harming anything, or anyone, else.

If only it were that simple.

Because there's no free lunch in science, researchers are working continually on ways to improve the efficacy of insecticides while minimizing their impact on the environment -- and its inhabitants.

An insecticide is any product or solution that prevents the proliferation of bugs, particularly when dealing with homes or vegetation. Advances in insecticides, which can kill, disrupt or limit bug populations, have helped agriculture explode in developed countries.

University of Maryland entomology professor Mike Raupp says not all bug-prevention methods are the same.

Some insecticides are administered via pressure pumps -- workers shoot pesticides roughly 100 feet into the air.

"This is a technology that puts an awful lot of material into the environment. A good deal of it doesn't go where you wish it to go," Mr. Raupp says. "It can drift with a little bit of wind."

If a neighborhood uses this method to, say, swat away mosquitoes, the side effects could have an adverse impact on another part of the ecosystem.

"You can knock out parasitic wasps that help control the pests on our trees," he says.

That happened recently when local workers, trying to protect regional hemlock trees, unwittingly created a spike in the spider mite population through insecticides.