Attract & Kill: The Hybrid IPM Solution

Pesticides must be toxic, or poisonous, to be effective against pests. They can be harmful to humans, animals and the environment. With an increasing body of research linking pesticides to human disease, its use in agriculture and urban environments is cause for great concern.

ISCA’s Attract & Kill technologies are inherently safer because they do not require complete coverage of the crop to be effective. On average, ISCA’s Attract & Kill products contact less than 1% of the crop surface area, resulting in significant reduction of insecticide use and safer consumer products.

Conventional pesticide usage has HIGH indirect costs—such as food toxicity, soil contamination and harm to consumers, workers & non-target insects or animals. Conventional pesticide, on average, result in 100-1,000 times more indirect costs per hectare than Attract & Kill solutions. Source: Environmental Pollution, 2008

Attract & Kill usage has LOW indirect costs—and low impact to the environment and food safety. Attract & Kill products, on average, result in 100-1,000 times fewer indirect costs per hectare than conventional pesticides. Source: Environmental Pollution, 2008

Conventional pesticide use forces growers to chase after the insects, hoping to eradicate them by spraying crops from top to bottom and end to end. Application must be repeated frequently, creating a dependence on pesticide use.

ISCA’s Attract & Kill solutions use a smarter approach by manipulating pest behavior, attracting them to a bait. Mimicking insect attraction systems found in the ecosystem, we use a naturally-occurring insect attractant to draw insects in, then eradicate them with a tiny amount of pesticide that contacts, on average, less than 1% of the crop.

Conventional pesticide use requires blanket spraying of the entire crop, which kills non-target insects (like honeybees or ladybugs) that serve as pollinators or natural predators to pests that can aid in crop growth. Without these beneficial insects, crop health suffers.

ISCA’s Attract & Kill products target only the pests damaging your crops—without damaging ecosystems or disturbing beneficial insects like honeybees or ladybugs.

The residue caused by blanket spraying of pesticides not only creates safety concerns, but is highly inefficient and damaging to the environment due to drift through the air and runoff into the soil and water supply.

Since ISCA’s Attract & Kill solutions contact such a small portion of the crop, residue is eliminated or dramatically reduced. There is no risk of drift through the air and runoff is avoided.

Traditional pesticides can become ineffective because insects build resistance to them after repeated exposure. This typically results in a continuous increase in pesticide use to see effectiveness, and growers must spend more and more money every year on pesticides. Moreover, pesticides generally have a short field life, so there is a constant need to spray.

ISCA’s Attract & Kill products have substantially longer field lives and are as effective or more effective than conventional pesticide sprays, making them a more efficient and cost-effective solution.