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Feb 13, 2021
UNIVERSITY PARK When they first showed up in 2012, Anne Kelly had no idea what the insects were.
“I had a day off from work and decided to clean my deck doors, and I saw all these little bugs,” Kelly, the resident of a development in southern Chester County, recalls. “They look like tiny gnats. I cleaned them up and went about my business. But they were back within an hour, and then they were all over my ceilings and windows. That was just the beginning.”
Kelly hired several exterminators, but they could not figure out where the insects were coming from. At her wits’ end, she took her dog and cat out of the house and had a bug bomb set off. But the mysterious “gnats” were back the next day even more than before.
IMAGE: Mike Wolfin
The Penn State team knew that many chemical products would be effective in killing phorid fly larvae, but they cannot be used because they are not permitted by EPA for use in mushroom crops. “It was a complicated challenge because anything that you add to the compost may be taken up by the mushroom, said team co-leader Tom Baker, distinguished professor of entomology and chemical ecology.
The team started screening products for potential use in the compost for larval control, but they did not find anything that was effective. The researchers then started looking at products for control of adults, as these could be targeted away from the compost/crop. They also studied the biology and behavior of the adults to determine if the flies were establishing populations in the residential areas. They found that populations were sustained only on the mushroom farms.