Laser zapper to fight Citrus Greening
The disease has driven orange production to under half 2005 levels by spreading a disease that prevents fruit ripening. Growers spray pesticides and pull out sickened trees, but it doesn’t appear to be a winning battle. “We’re starting to question if we can actually control them,” says John Barben, a farmer in Highlands County.
Intellectual Ventures, co-founded by former Microsoft chief technology officer Nathan Myhrvold, wants to use the opportunity to test their new insect zapping-laser system. This summer the company plans to install a device that uses cameras and a laser beam to identify and shoot down psyllids on a U.S. Department of Agriculture site in the state. You can see a video of the laser in action here.
Death by laser beam sounds messy. But Arty Makagon, technical lead on the project, says the device’s eye-safe, invisible, infrared laser makes clean kills, having been calibrated to deliver just enough heat to kill insects without wasting power.
source: technologyreview.com
