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Two New Mosquito Repellents

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has just listed picaridin and the oil of lemon eucalyptus as effective as the currently recommended DEET. Both of these repellents have been used in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand since the 1980’s. Recent tests by Australian and Israeli military scientists indicate that picaridin and the oil of lemon eucalyptus are as effective as DEET. Further testing is needed in the United States.

"Since West Nile virus is present across the entire country at this point and it's here to stay, we constantly need to be vigilant," said Dr. Lyle Petersen, director of the CDC's division of vector-borne infectious diseases. "It gives consumers a better option to protect themselves."

The oil of lemon eucalyptus is a natural ingredient extracted from Eucalyptus citriodora. Many of the oil of lemon eucalyptus products on the market are being used in aromatherapy and these extracts are not labeled as repellents. The oil of lemon eucalyptus repellants have been shown to protect from mosquitoes for up to 6 hours, the equivalent of milder formulations of DEET. However, if you want to try the oil of lemon eucalyptus extract as a repellent, be sure it is labeled as a repellant.

Picaridin research shows it is the equal of DEET products. Picaridin containing repellents are less oily and do not have an odor like DEET. The current labeling for United States products will include ticks, chiggers, no-seeums, and mosquitoes.

Picaridin and oil of lemon eucalyptus repellants may not be locally available. They can be ordered over the Internet. Check several sources as there may be a big difference in pricing from different web outlets.

One last point is these are still chemicals. Adults and especially children should introduce themselves or be introduced slowly to these new products. We are all different and may react differently to products deemed safe for the general public.

(Author: Jim Jarman, Agronomy Specialist)

(Author: Parman R. Green, Ag Business Management Specialist)

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Technology Tips:  Internet Searching -- Part Two

Some simple techniques will ensure better results. The best advice is to be specific with your search. General words will get many hits by a search engine, but it may be impossible to go through them and find what you want.

Let’s look at a simple example: We want to find some information on soybean rust. We could go to a search engine and type in soybean rust. Doing that, we will get hits on web pages that have the word soybean and that have rust. Some of these may not be related to each other. To narrow the search we can put the words in quotation marks making the search engines look for the phase "soybean rust". This will narrow the search down some. We might also want to narrow the search down to sites that have the word Missouri in them. We could search for the following: +"soybean rust" +Missouri. Using the plus signs causes the search engine to give us pages that have both the phrase soybean rust and the word Missouri in them.

Since I work for the University of Missouri, I have a prejudice that education related information might be more reliable and less biased than other information sources. We could further refine the search by looking for the following:
+"soybean rust" +Missouri +edu. Putting the edu in the search will tend to give us sites that are education related.

The following are results in number of hits I got with three search engines using this technique:

We have made no attempt here to evaluate the quality of what we found. This simply show the difference in numbers of hits with the various search engines and search techniques. Results will vary on a daily basis. Space doesn’t allow for more discussion on this. Watch for future issues for other searching suggestions.

(Author: Don Day, Natural Resource Engineer)

Soybean Rust Update -- Spraying For Soybean Rust

The following material was summarized from a publication, “Using Foliar Fungicides to Manage Soybean Rust.” The entire publication can be found on the web at:
http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/soyrust/

	Choose the appropriate size and type of nozzles and operate them at a pressure that will allow them to produce small to medium (200-300 micron) size droplets.
	To improve coverage in drilled soybean, consider using directed spraying.
	Use twin nozzle technology; two nozzles angled forward and backward work better than single nozzles spraying down. Twin flat fan nozzles can take the place of regular flat fan nozzles.
	Air-assisted spray systems often provide the best coverage and droplet penetration into full-canopy soybean.
	Keep spray volumes (application rate) at minimum of 15 gallons per acre (gpa) for ground application and 5 gpa for aerial application, especially late in the growing season.

Environmental conditions at the time of spraying can have a great influence on final disease control outcome.

There will be soybean rust updates throughout the season so watch for more information. Updates can be found at: http://agebb.missouri.edu/mgt/soyrust/

Be sure to check ahead of time on accessibility of fungicides.

(Author: Don Day, Natural Resource Engineer)