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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		Safe replellents found to protect ripe fruit from pests
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:05
	Publish Date:		2016-09-11 19:00:00
	Description:		Nearly 40 percent of worldwide agricultural crops are destroyed by insects. Take the small invasive fruit fly known as the spotted wing Drosophila. It feeds on ripening fruits, laying eggs inside berries, causing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of agricultural damage. Entomologist Anandasankar Ray of the University of California, Riverside says most flies go for rotting fruits that have fallen off plants. "But these flies will go after the ripening fruit. And so this is of particular concern because when you have fruit or produce that is close to harvest, you really do not want to spray toxic chemical on them." Ray helped identify a safe repellent that uses a grape-smelling chemical compound that’s produced naturally in fruits in small amounts. In the lab, ripe blueberries coated with it warded off the hungry flies. "We will continually improve upon these active ingredients that we found. It’s not a stagnant process, it is technology-driven and innovation-driven."
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