Insecticide (1 Viewer)

[Survivor39]

In your HSC syllabus, you were ask to learn about genetic variations in a population and how some genes resist a particular disease more than those individuals who don't have this gene.

One of the examples is the use of insecticide to kill insects from eating the crops. After spraying, using caterpilla as an example, some caterpillars survived because they have resistance against this particular insecticide. (or DDT against mosquitoes)

My question for all of you is, why doesn't scientists use multiple insecticides/pesticides simultaneously to eliminate these bad insects so that they can't reproduce and pass on their resistant genes?

 

[mr EaZy]

Thats i good question

i remember thinking "why?" when i actually did the bio course.

i dunno but could it be because only one insecticide was available at any one time. i dont recall hearing a substitute for ddt or the rabbit chemicals, or that bt crop thing.

Maybe because long ago, people didnt know about resistance, i mean ddt was used in the 1900s-1920s right? that was when malaria (not Greece) was the word!

I read an article on how BT toxin producing plants may be used, one solution is to to mix non BT crops with Bt producing crops. That way, non resistant insects will still have a chance and resistant genes will not gain exclusive rights to procreation! thats just what i think.

Like i said, we only use one chemical: we dont use more than one antibiotic. it seems to do the job. thats until we discover resistant germs. so i dunno why we dont pack ourselves with different antibiotics. maybe someone esle can fill that in.

 

[withoutaface]

Because no matter how many pesticides you use there is probably going to be at least two insects remaining, and if the farmer wants to kill most of the population again when their numbers go back up, its going to be much more difficult to kill a population resistant to several different insecticides as opposed to just one.

Thats just logically reasoned bullshit, and its probably wrong, but I feel that I had to give it a try.

EDIT: Also might have something to do with the environmental impacts.

 

[mr EaZy]

i dont think it matters how many u put out as well.

the reason why we had bacterial/insect resistance was because we failed to wipe out every single unit of those critters. Thats why doctors say u must finish your antibiotic pills- to ensure they're all dead and no survivors are available who have some how managed to gain a slight advantage over its precessors. Because if the survivors replicate again, and antibiotics are used again ( in another cycle, ) then the slight advantage will again be given to the survivors who through inheritance or otherwise possessed a trait or behavioural adaptation or whatever. So thats what i think about it ..

 

[t-i-m-m-y]

survivor39: i'm not sure wiping every single one (which would be hard) of the bad insects would be a good thing to do; mayhaps they serve an important role in maintaining a different ecosystem who knows?

The bacteria (strepto coccus?) i can't remember (golden staph) is totally resistant to virtually all antibiotics... so if we used all our insectides at once, and some survive, what we will have is a totally new race of mutant insects lolz.. that we can't fight any moreand the world will reach its end

 

[Survivor39]

timmy - it is possible to extinct a whole species using many different types of drugs - maybe 1000+ which (i think) can be produced by simply rearranging the chemical structure of drug. for example, there are isomers of glucose. Drugs also have isomers.

You can't have one single organism that is NOT susceptible to EVERY single drugs. even Golden Staph that you have mentioned is not resistant every drug. New research have been done and there is ONE drug that can kill Golden staph. They kept this drug in a box with two locks (two people have one key each) and won't use it if they really have to, since bacteria can become resistant to this drug as well.

 

[TheKing]

well, if you acutally look at the dates for each type of biological control, e.g for rabbits we see that they're quiet a few years apart.

basically from what i've gathered is that biological controls need alot of testing etc and they take a long time to produce. So the problem is... do you want to let the population run into plague proportions while 2,3,4... more controls are developed, or do you want to control the population for now?