Where Can You Find Milky Spore?
The first insect pathogen in the United States to be registered as a microbial control agent is milky spore, also known as Bacillus popilliae Dutky. Milky spore infects the larvae or grub of the Japanese beetle. The grub eats the roots of lawns and other plants. Milky spore comes in a powder form and is widely available to gardeners. Does this Spark an idea?
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History
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Japanese beetles arrived in shipments of shrubbery from Japan in the 1930s. Their larvae, or grubs, are infamous for eating the roots of grass in lawns and golf courses. During the years, they have caused millions of dollars of damage to fruit trees, ornamentals and the roots and bulbs of other plants. In the course of its one-year life cycle, each grub lays about 50 eggs.
In his research at the United States Department of Agriculture facility, Dr. Sam Dutky, in the 1940s, discovered a spore, Bacillus popilliae Dutky, that would kill the grub of the Japanese beetle. He called it milky spore. Dutky developed a manufacturing process in the laboratory that used the grub to produce the spore. He collected larvae from turf farmers. After cleaning and anesthetizing them, he used a tiny hypodermic needle to inoculate them with 1/300 cc of milky disease that he had gotten from the original sick Japanese beetles. He incubated the infected grubs and used them to produce more milky spore and milky spore serum.
Safety
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Milky spore is host specific. It affects only the larvae of the Japanese beetle. It is harmless when touched or eaten by other animals, worms, birds or humans. In the 1950s and 1960s, the government began using milky spore on the lawns of the White House and Capitol Hill. In her 1962 book "Silent Spring," Rachael Carson mentioned milky spore as a good replacement for pesticides that were poisoning the environment.
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Application
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Apply milky spore on top of the grass. Late summer is best, which is when grubs are active. Place a teaspoon full of spore powder in a single spot every four feet. Do this is in rows that are four feet apart, forming a grid. Do not sprinkle the powder. This will come out to about 10 ounces of milky spore for a 50 by 50 feet of lawn. Water your lawn well to soak in the spore.
A teaspoon contains millions of spores. The spore you dump in one spot will infect grubs in the near vicinity. They will die and decay, adding billions of new spores and natural fertilizer to the area between the spots where the spores were dumped. More grubs means the spore will spread faster. The infection is completed in two to three weeks. This is when the grubs take on a milky appearance for which the spore is named. It can take from three to five years for the spore to become effective, although one application can last up to 15 years.
Manufacturers
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Milky spore is manufactured commercially by two companies, St. Gabriel Laboratories in Gainesville, Virginia, and Fairfax Labs in Clinton Corners, New York.
Where to buy
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St. Gabriel is promoted and sold widely on Internet websites and around the country. St. Gabriel's website www.stgl.us/ has a locator that will give you the address of a store near you that sells its milky spore. There are 7,000 stores in the database, many have telephones and email address.
Enter your zip code to find the store nearest you. Then go to Google maps and enter the address of a nearby store that sells St. Gabriel's milky spore. If you enter your own address, Google maps will show you how to get there.
The garden centers of Wal-Mart and most shopping malls sell milky spore. If you go to www.gardencenters.com/ you'll find a function that locates garden centers by city, by state, and by name of franchised garden centers. Just enter your city, tap on "go" and garden centers in your town will pop up with an address and phone number.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit Photo/ public domain/US GOV
