Original Video Source: Talking Biotech Podcast
Talking Biotech Podcast: Bees Delivering Pesticides
Podcast With: Dr. Kevin Folta
The relationship between pollinators and crop protection strategies has always pitted them against each other, with concern about how insecticides and herbicides might affect charismatic non-target insects like bees. A new technology by the company Bee Vectoring Technologies rewrites the definition to the relationship. In this approach, bees exit the hive to deliver a fungicide to the flower, a biological control that competes against pathogenic fungi that start their damage early in fruit development. In this episode I speak with representatives from the company about the technology, its application, and its safety with regard to pollinators and the environment.