Stink Bug Control

Summary: Will there ever be a product developed for stink bug control? Eventually, but the development process will focus on crop protection long before you ever find a can of stink bug spray on retail shelves.

Everyone asks “Is someone developing a cure for keeping stink bugs out of my home?” and the answer is and always will be “No! No chemical manufacturer is developing a product for the urban pest control market.” However, do not despair! You need to better understand how new chemicals are developed and how this system of development will provide relief somewhere down the road.

When NASA sends our astronauts into space with the latest and greatest technology, how many times have we, the general public, benefited from these technological advances? Too many to count is the correct answer. The space program has introduced ideas and finished products that populate our everyday world such as technology for computers, cell phones, medicine, air pollution, water purification systems, scratch-resistant lens, trash compactors, flat panel televisions, smoke detectors, the Dustbuster, solar energy, fire resistant materials, noise abatement products, breast cancer detection, programmable pacemakers, air tanks for firemen, self-righting life rafts, improved aircraft engines and the list goes on and on.

It is doubtful that only a few of the aforementioned products would have come to pass had it not been for our space program. Individually, no manufacturing company could undertake the enormous costs involved in the development of most of these products. What entrepreneur would risk a fortune to try to develop a self-righting life raft? Even if the idea was in place the end market would be so limited that sales would never cover the costs of development and manufacturing. But, NASA needed this raft for returning spacecraft that landed in oceans. We needed to protect our astronauts at any cost, so the government funded the research and development and the final ideas were given or sold to manufacturers. With research and development costs paid for by our taxes, manufacturers were willing to step forward to bring this product to market.

This same principle holds true for the development of a product or method to fight stink bugs. Regardless of how many people are suffering from stink bug invasions, it does not present a large enough market for chemical manufacturers to make the huge investment required to develop a product and go through the environmental registration process. It takes tens of millions of dollars to bring a new pesticide to market and even if every man, woman and child suffering from stink bugs bought a case of the product it still would not come close to being profitable for the manufacturers.

Crop research

It is interesting to note that there is only one, single pest control product that has ever been specifically developed solely for the pest control industry. Sentricon, a product for termite control, was the only pesticide product ever developed and brought to market just for the urban pest control industry. All other pesticides have been developed for agricultural crop protection and were re-labeled sometime after they were introduced, for use in our homes and businesses.

So, where is the light at the end of the tunnel? Actually, several universities and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are hard at work trying to discover the various weaknesses of the stink bug. Scientists are investigating the attractant pheromones of these bugs in the hopes of developing stink bug traps. Stink bugs are being screened for genes and proteins that can be engineered into crops that will suppress stink bugs, thus reducing the population explosion. There are some natural parasitic insects reachers are discovering that eat the eggs of the stink bug found in various field crops. The stink bugs are migrating from farm fields, so destroying the eggs at the source would help everyone.

All of this research will take time, but ultimately help will arrive and this plague, too, will pass.