The whole world pays Israel millions of dollars for rare ticks: why these insects are needed

Israel has for many years been considered the world's top exporter of Pistorius persimilis, in other words, a carnivorous arachnid mite: foreigners pay millions for it, reports Details.

Photo: IStock

In a project that has been going on for almost 10 years, researchers have been able to find a replacement for the chemicals sprayed on orchards and fields planted with vegetables. Instead, they decided to breed and breed ... a voracious tick.

This tiny creature is at the same time completely frantic. One gram of this living creature can cost $600. These mites are harvested from the Beit Shean Valley, packaged in small tea bags, and sent from there to the fields of California, the clementine groves of Spain, Mexico to wild berry bush farmers, marijuana plantations, and rose greenhouses in Colombia and Canada.

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An outstanding feature makes this tick an indispensable pest hunter: it is very voracious, and, first of all, intends to devour its own relative - the red tick, a pest and enemy of all farmers. This pest multiplies rapidly, destroying cucumbers, watermelons, pumpkins, peppers, potatoes, pears, apple trees. It destroys entire orchards, fields and plantations. Israeli scientists at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu's BioBi have figured out how to put the production of a hostile micromonster on a production line, and now they produce it to order, at any time of the year and for everyone who needs it. This allows you to grow more food with fewer chemicals, or even without them.

The benefits of Pistorius persimilis were first noted in 1937, and farmers began to use it for pest control, and at the same time learned to grow it at home - for example, they planted mites on eggplant bushes in summer, which lived on strawberries that had already been harvested in winter. But the volumes were not enough for complete disinfection. And from the end of the 1960s, the industrial cultivation of this tick began, with the sale by weight. To do this, they imitated natural conditions: they infected beans in greenhouses with a pest, waited for it to spread, and then they lowered a tick on it and allowed it to breed to the volumes required by farmers. In an eight-week cycle, it was possible to collect about a kilogram of carnivorous mites from 1000 square meters of the greenhouse.

Demand was growing, the number of greenhouses around Sde Eliyahu for growing ticks was increasing, the temperature and humidity levels were maintained exactly at the level that this insect loves. Only ... nature interfered: either excessive heat would destroy a portion of these arachnids, then cold, then insects would sneak into the greenhouse or a fungus would start there, all this disrupts the fragile microclimate and the growth process. In such cases, the cultivation process had to be restarted, and farmers in the fields suffered from pests that spoiled their crops.

In the last decade, scientists have figured out how to solve the problem - and began to work on replacing greenhouses with a single industrial line, not subject to the vagaries of nature. Now it has been created, and the number of mites that used to be produced by 50 people in greenhouses on an area of ​​​​80 square meters can now be produced throughout the year, in any weather, by only ten people in a room of 000 square meters.

The industrial rearing system for Pistorius persimilis is based on the revolutionary idea of ​​feeding them. It has been declared the world's best agricultural innovation for 2021. This year, a group of its creators received the award. Bernard Bloom from the International Biological Pest Management Association (IBMA) based in Basel, Switzerland. And the company "BioBi", which grew up in Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, is considered one of the three leading companies in the field of bioprotection of plants from pests.

“Humanity is trying to produce more food to feed more mouths,” says Hagay Schnir, deputy director general of the agriculture ministry. “We want to keep normal prices for vegetables and fruits, so we can’t completely abandon chemicals yet – but we must be careful with them so as not to pay the public health.” And recalls, for example, that recently Germany threatened Spain to stop purchasing its agricultural products if it does not stop abusing pesticides.

Israel has restrictions on the use of chemicals, but it still uses some substances that are banned in other countries. Israeli law also requires that the farmer, after disinfection, wait some time before harvesting, allowing the poison to evaporate from the fruits before they reach the stores and from there end up on our plates. However, some summer crops require daily harvesting at the time of ripening, any delay reduces the amount of crop available for sale, the result is either farmers suffer losses or consumers pay more, and sometimes both. Because of this, the most stable chemicals sometimes remain on the fruit until the point of sale.

“Public opinion is becoming more and more against chemicals, standards for their use are getting stricter, and farmers are at a loss – they don’t know what to do,” says Hagai Schnier. “The weather doesn’t make them happy either: earlier, the number of pests decreased in the rainy and cold season, but as temperatures rise, this happens less and less.

The red tick loves warm and dry weather, so in the Negev and Arava, where most of Israel's agricultural products are grown, the climate is almost ideal for its reproduction. In addition, due to the short life cycle and strong reproduction, this pest is able to develop resistance to pesticides right in the current season. You spray the field with chemicals, and the effect is like pouring water over it. We have to increase the amount of chemicals, their concentration. Then they seep into the groundwater, or evaporate. And fields and orchards adjoin residential communities, and despite their pastoral appearance, they are already contaminated with chemistry.”

Growers of tomatoes and cucumbers carry out fruit disinfection 8 times during the growing cycle. They couldn't be persuaded to give up chemicals - it was like losing their crops - but when they started using carnivorous mites, their chemical use was reduced by 60%.

That is why the problem of environmentally friendly pest control is so urgent for Israel, and the Ministry of Agriculture allocates millions of dollars annually to projects in this area. Unlike pesticides, the red tick cannot develop resistance to the carnivorous tick, which will crawl from leaf to leaf until it finds a target and devours it. The red tick is protected from other enemies by a web, but Pistorius persimilis easily overcomes it - it reaches the calf, sticks its proboscis into it, sucks out the contents and in a moment, leaving the mangled corpse, goes in search of a new victim, whether it is an adult, or young, or barely hatched larva.

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BioBi's insect breeding factories in Israel employ 350 people and have subsidiaries in Chile, Mexico, Colombia, the USA, Canada and South Africa. It also breeds sterilized male Mediterranean fruit flies (Ceratitis capitata), a dangerous pest that is reducing its population. And also - larvae of wasps that destroy harmful aphids. Other products include predatory bugs that destroy enemies of vegetables and flowers; bumblebees capable of pollinating greenhouses and gardens. Now here is also a carnivorous tick. The entire process of its industrial production is patented and classified.

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