BLOW FLY PEST.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 257, 27 September 1935, Page 10

BLOW FLY PEST.

CONTROL HOPED FOR. GOOD NEWS FOR FARMERS. It has been officially announced that the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research has discovered a specific which is expected to ensure the control of the blow-fly pest and render sheep permanently immune from its attack, says a Sydney report of September 16. What this means to our sheepmen may be imagined from the council’s estimate that the loss to our flocks frojn blow-fly attack can be conservatively estimated at £4,000,000 a year. It would be well worth our while to save all that money, to say nothing of the anxiety and labour that this terrible pest occasions every year throughout our rural districts. The entomological division of the C.5.1.R., under the direction of Dr. Tilyard, whose ability in this direction is well known and recognised in New Zealand, has been experimenting at • Canberra with blow-flies for a long time past. The flies are kept in specially warmed cages, supplied with light approximating to the sun’s brilliancy, and they are fed. on “a carefullv balanced diet of dates, sugar and meat,” treatment which many people on the dole would doubtless envy them. Their habiis and tlieir rate of propagation have been carefully investigated, anc! our entomologists are beginning to come to definite conclusions about them. Not the least interesting feature of the study is the amazing rate at which the species reproduces it Self. Dr. Tilyard estimates that the progeny of one pair of blow-flies is provided with sufficient food would in one year equal the weight of the earth ! —which is put down at 132 billion billion pounds. Of course, figures raised to this scale of magnitude mean little to most people, but they map at least suggest the immensity of this pest and the magnitude, of the task undertaken by those who are grappling with it. However, so it is reported, a mixture of boracic acid, with other ingredients, in glycerine in certain proportions, has been proved to cure the blow-fly “strike” on sheep, and it lias been proved also to prevent “re-strike” for as long as 40 days. COST OF MANUFACTURE.

The experts believe that further experiments will enable them to render the cure and the immunity .permanent; and it is also claimed for this wonderful new dressing that it is absolutely harmless to the slieep, that it is easy to apply, that it helps to heal the injured area, and that it does not discolour or adversely affect the wool. It sounds almost too good to be true, and at present the only “fly in the ointment” seems to be the cost. Manufactured with pure chemicals, the mixture would cost 11s or 12s a gallon. But by simplified methods of preparation and by diluting the liquid the cost can be brought down to about 4s per gallon; and this would mean that flocks could be treated in the open fields at a cost of 3d per bead; or, with further dilution, for Id per head for the season. If this is only approximately correct, the news should be sure of a most enthusiastic reception from all our sheep farmers. It may be premature to draw any further inference from results which so far have been chiefly in the nature of laboratory experiments, but the fact that tiie treatment apparently renders the sheep immune from further attacks over a considerable period is most significant and justifies high hopes for its ultimate success. The C.S.f.R. is one of Australia’s most important national institutions, and our people are already grateful for the many benefits that its investigations have" secured for'them. The elimination of the blow-fly pest would mean so much to our sheep industry, and therefore to the whole Commonwealth, that further developments-will be awaited here with eager anticipation.