Stokstad, E. (2022, September 1). Researchers just made it easier-and cheaper-to confuse crop pests. Science. Retrieved September 14, 2022, from https://www.science.org/content/article/researchers-just-made-it-easier-and-cheaper-confuse-crop-pests 

Many farmers turn to pesticides to protect their crops whereas some prefer a gentler approach, spraying their fields with behavior affecting chemicals called pheromones. The pheromones mimic a smell given off by female insects to attract mates. When farmers flood their fields with the chemicals, it overwhelms the biological signals in the insects and prevents reproduction. The downside- artificial pheromones are incredibly expensive and labor intensive. The price of the chemicals is almost $400 per hectare, and requires workers to set and maintain the traps. Christer Löfstedt, a chemical ecologist at Lund University, and his colleagues have been experimenting with an alternative and cheaper method of using pheromones. They created a genetically modified plant with the chemical building blocks needed to create pheromones. They decided to use a flowering plant called Camelina, and outfitted the plant with a gene that causes the seeds to give off hexadecenoic acid, which can mimic the mating pheromone. There they are able to purify the seeds into oil, and create a liquid similar to the expensive artificial pheromones. The traps proved to work just as well, and cost only a quarter of the previous pheromones to produce, which makes this a cost effective solution, putting it on par with current pesticides.

While I think that creating cost effective pheromones to control pest populations is a hopeful idea, I think that there are few issues with technical implementation. Firstly, according to the article the pheromones have proved to work best in large fields. Since farmers in most developing regions work small plots of land, there would need the unification of surrounding farmers which could possibly prove difficult to obtain cooperation. The introduction of these new pheromones could also have lasting effects on the surrounding ecosystem. There is no way of knowing if the chemicals would affect pollinators of other keystone species necessary to upholding a stable environment. Overall I think the idea of such alternatives to pest control is promising, this one seems to have logistical issues as well as the possibility of unintended consequences.