![]() ![]() “To train a dog to detect an odor, we use a pairing mechanism,” Dickinson said. Up until this point, Dickinson had only trained him at home using spotted lanternfly egg samples. This was Flint’s first foray into the field. Insects have a sweet tooth, too, supposedly. Dripping with clusters of sugary fruit, grapevines are especially prone to spotted lanternflies. The center is well-known for its contributions to the commercial fruit industry, including wine grape research. Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Winchester. On a crystal-clear afternoon, Flint showed off his impressive sense of smell at the Alson H. “Every day, average dogs are competing and finding these scents, and that speaks to their potential ability to detect ecologically and agriculturally relevant targets,” Feuerbacher said. Nose work has also become an increasingly popular dog sport, Feuerbacher said. More recently, he’s become an expert at finding spotted lanternfly eggs.įor decades, dogs and their impeccable noses, which possess up to 300 million olfactory receptors, have been used to detect missing people, narcotics, and explosives. Flint has been trained in emergency situations as a cadaver dog. Feuerbacher has a vested interest in dog welfare and behavior, while Dickinson has a strong background in training dogs for odor detection. He is energetic, playful, and very well-trained, thanks to the efforts of his talented owner and trainer, Sally Dickinson, a doctoral candidate in the School of Animal Sciences and a student of Feuerbacher’s.īoth women share an affinity for four-legged animals, especially dogs. ![]() The project, unofficially called the Canine Citizen Science Study, began two years ago in an olfactory lab at Texas Tech and has recently expanded to the East Coast, where Feuerbacher and assistants are asking dog owners to unite and utilize their pets’ scent work skills to sniff out spotted lanternfly eggs.įlint is an 8-year-old border collie. Department of Agriculture-Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, Erica Feuerbacher, an associate professor of applied animal welfare and behavior in the School of Animal Sciences, and Mizuho Nita, a Virginia Cooperative Extension specialist and an associate professor in the School for Plant and Environmental Sciences, have partnered with researchers at Texas Tech University to combat both the spotted lanternfly and the deadly fungal disease powdery mildew with the help of canines and their citizen-scientist counterparts. With a four-year, $475,000 grant from the U.S. Now, researchers in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences are experimenting with a new approach and calling upon dogs in the fight against the spotted lanternfly. Stomp, squash, or smash the dastardly bug, they say. Officials in infested states have brainstormed different approaches to stop the spread of this deadly leafhopper. Envision logging trucks traveling back and forth across the country with a few unwelcome pesky passengers braced to the back. They are often characterized as “hitchhikers” for their ability to move long distances through human-assisted movement. Spotted lanternflies, native to mainland China, prey upon 70-plus host plant species, stealing their nutrients with their piercing snouts, called stylets. It has been estimated that crops and forest production losses caused by insects and pathogens are close to $40 billion a year. These warnings are not required by FDA or other Federal agencies.From New York to North Carolina and as far west as Illinois, the invasive spotted lanternfly is causing chaos in many states where agricultural and forestry industries are essential to the economy. Therefore, out of an abundance of caution we decide to adopt this marking in 2017 to alleviate any legal issues that could arise from an improperly marked product sold in California. Please note that PC and ABS plastics are not listed polymers under Prop 65, but the identified precursor chemicals are listed and in some cases these finished plastics may contain low levels of the chemical in the plastic. Prop 65 identifies Styrene as a chemical that can cause cancer. Our lighting products use Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) plastic for battery carriers and other enclosures, and Styrene is a precursor chemical used to make ABS plastic. Prop 65 identifies BPA as a cause of reproductive toxicity. Our lighting products use Polycarbonate (PC) lenses for light projection, and Bisphenol A (BPA) is a precursor chemical used to make PC lenses. We believe that our products are completely safe for consumer use and if any Prop 65 listed chemicals were to be present, we believe they would be within the safe harbor levels for exposure as published by Prop 65. California Required Warning CANCER AND REPRODUCTIVE HARM Q - What is the Prop 65 warning, and should I be worried before I purchase?Ī - Our “WARNING” notices are mandated by California Proposition 65. ![]()
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