2016 Baccalaureate Mass Homily

Homily delivered at the 2016 Baccalaureate Mass as part of the 170th Commencement of the College of the Holy Cross. The homilist, Rev. William R. Campbell, S.J., is the Vice President for Mission at the College of the Holy Cross. He is also an alumnus of the College, Class of 1987.https://crossworks.holycross.edu/bacc_homily/1001/thumbnail.jp

Potential repellency of cedarwood oil from a novel extraction method to stored product insects

Producers lose 10-30% of crops during storage, processing, and marketing after harvest each year to stored product insects (1,2). Globally, there has been a rise in insecticide resistance to phosphine, the most common fumigant for these pests (3). As a result, producers need to diversify post-harvest IPM methods to preserve existing tools. One alternative strategy is push-pull, whereby a repellent is used to “push” an insect away from the commodity of interest, while also simultaneously “pulling” the insects to an alternate location away from the commodity using an attractant (4)(Fig. 1). This system notably requires a long-distance repellent. One potential repellent includes cedarwood oil, which has shown repellency to termites and ants (5,6). A novel extraction process for this compound has been developed, which leaves many of its main constituents intact (7). However, to date, this compound has never been assessed for repellency to post-harvest insects