Team:SSHS-Shenzhen/Human Practices/3
2018.igem.org/Team:SSHS-Shenzhen)
Mission: Farmers interview
Date: August 8, 2018
Location: Zoological Laboratory, Shenzhen University.
In order to learn firsthand about the negative effect of the phyllotreta striolata and gather the insects, we visited the Shenzhen university field station. Here we found that the vegetables without pesticides are particularly weak and pitiful under the impact of flea beetles. On the vegetable field, we caught so many insects and observed the woods of the vegetables which caused by the phyllotreta striolata. From the picture, we can see that the vegetable were full of holes.
In addition, we also asked questions about the insects to the farmers who work there. They stated that the phyllotreta striolatas are the hardest insects to kill in the vegetable fields and caused the most devastating injury to the vegetables because the insects have strong jumping power that helps them to flee away from the catch of farmers and amazing fecundity which causes the impassibility of killing them out. Unlike the caterpillar, the phyllotreta striolata bursting with vitality will suddenly reappear just after a little raining and then all of the previous efforts wasted. Although the way of pesticide is useful, the only way to kill this kind of insects is crop-dusting which may cause environment problem. We all know that the pesticide will cause many healthy problems, so it may be a worst method to kill bettles.
After the series of questions, we took the insects caught by the farmer to the Shenzhen University for our experiment and deploied our spray and made a controlled experiment.