Georgia Now Free of Boll Weevil

[December 27, 2007]  STATESBORO, Ga. (AP) -- After a costly eradication program, the destructive boll weevil is gone from Georgia fields and from much of the country, cotton farmers say.

In the 1980s, the boll weevil burrowed its way across cotton fields and caused the state's cotton industry to hit record low yields.

But today, Georgia farmers say they have gone five years without the quarter-inch long, dun-colored beetle that insinuated itself into the plant's boll, laid eggs and watched its offspring cut through the plant and ruin it.

"Definitely, the boll weevil was a bad boy," said Kevin Hendrix, a fourth-generation farmer who harvests cotton outside Statesboro in eastern Georgia. "We're sure glad he's gone."

In 2002, the USDA declared the boll weevil eradicated in Georgia, but getting rid of the bugs did not come cheaply.

Researchers discovered the pheromone that boll weevils give off when they want to mate. The beetles were then lured into insecticide-filled traps encircling fields.

In 1986, Georgia's 2,800 cotton growers agreed in a referendum to tax themselves to rid the state of weevils using the traps. Taxpayers covered 30 percent of eradication costs.

A decade later, Georgia produced 2 million bales, its largest yield since 1919. Revenues topped a record $720 million. Today, the statewide eradication programs costs farmers only $2.50 per acre, down from $35 an acre.

"It's an inexpensive and effective way to control" the boll weevil, said Bill Grefenstette, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's top weevil eradicator. "Growers' cost of producing the crop drops dramatically when they're not spraying every week. And we've taken tons of fairly hot pesticides out of the whole production scheme."

[Associated Press; By JOHN DUNBAR]

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