BTI-Bt based Biopesticide for control of Bollworm/budworm complex

BT-BASED BIOPESTICIDE FOR CONTROL OF THE BOLLWORM/BUDWORM COMPLEX

Cotton producers in the United States lost an estimated 1.17 million bales ($337,024,194 ) to insect pests in 2003. Related costs increased the total loss to $1.076 billion. Bollworms and budworms were the number one pest, reducing yields belt-wide by 1.39 percent. Bollworms were the dominant species, representing more than 85 percent of the bollworm/budworm complex.

The cotton bollworm, an important pest of cotton, is native to North and South America and is commonly found throughout the US . Besides cotton, the larvae feed on a wide range of cultivated and non-cultivated crops. The pink bollworm is the most important cotton pest in the world, occurring in almost every cotton-producing country, and, the cotton budworm , otherwise known as the tobacco budworm, occurs throughout the Western Hemisphere and feeds primarily on tobacco, cotton and soybeans.

Chemical pesticides such as pyrethroids and phosphates have become increasingly unavailable to agricultural producers, primarily because of the accumulation of pesticide residues and environmental pollution. Instead, producers are relying on alternative insecticides, such as Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)-based biopesticides and transgenic Bt cotton, both of which are highly efficacious and safer for the environment. In the past few years, however, there has been an increasing bollworm problem in transgenic cotton varieties. Whether the bollworm is adapting (gaining resistance) to this type of technology is not yet determined.

Biological Targets, Inc. (BTI) owns a recently discovered strain of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that efficiently kills the bollworm/budworm complex as well as the cotton leafworm and cotton nematodes. The new strain has a broader range of insecticidal and nematicidal activities, is more potent and is faster acting than any other Bt currently used in commercial biopesticides to control cotton insects and other agricultural pests.