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Mite is right for a scientist with flair
Source: Xinhua |
January 12, 2009, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
DR Zhang Yanxuan is pleasantly embarrassed by her booming predatory mite business as it means joy and profit for the 52-year-old scientist.
"More and more people think of me as a businesswoman," said Zhang, professor of Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. "But I prefer to be called a scientist."
Zhang is one of the country's top researchers studying mites which prey on pest mites.
Pest mites destroy millions of crops throughout the world. In China, peasants use pesticide to kill spider mites and rust mites.
Overuse of such chemicals, however, is creating food safety issues and environmental deterioration. Zhang's method of biological control is an alternative solution to these emerging problems.
Zhang began to study mites 27 years ago. In the mid-1990s, she introduced a foreign predatory mite into China. The purpose was to kill other mites which were destroying crops.
After years of state-sponsored research, she developed a set of procedures for breeding the predatory mite. Zhnang's discovery enabled mass production, packaging, preserving, transportation and field application of the microscopic creatures.
Zhang first unleashed the predatory mites on bamboo hills in north Fujian Province in southeast China in 1998. They killed the mites that were eating the bamboo, thus saving the plant.
From 1999, Zhang expanded her biological control method to more than 20 species of crops including citrus, tea, hop, cotton and apple.
For those achievements, she was awarded second prize at China's 2008 State Top Scientific and Technological Awards last Friday.
Over the past 10 years, her bio-control method has been used on 191,000 hectares of land in more than 20 Chinese provinces. It helped reduce the use of pesticides by more than 3,200 tons and saved 870,000 farmers more than 180 million yuan (US$26 million) on pest control.
Zhang said the greatest obstacle was, and still is, persuading farmers to avoid using pesticides. They don't trust you and they even throw the free predators away."
Then Zhang began selling mites instead of giving them away. She then promised to pay for all the losses if the mites failed.
"More and more people think of me as a businesswoman," said Zhang, professor of Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. "But I prefer to be called a scientist."
Zhang is one of the country's top researchers studying mites which prey on pest mites.
Pest mites destroy millions of crops throughout the world. In China, peasants use pesticide to kill spider mites and rust mites.
Overuse of such chemicals, however, is creating food safety issues and environmental deterioration. Zhang's method of biological control is an alternative solution to these emerging problems.
Zhang began to study mites 27 years ago. In the mid-1990s, she introduced a foreign predatory mite into China. The purpose was to kill other mites which were destroying crops.
After years of state-sponsored research, she developed a set of procedures for breeding the predatory mite. Zhnang's discovery enabled mass production, packaging, preserving, transportation and field application of the microscopic creatures.
Zhang first unleashed the predatory mites on bamboo hills in north Fujian Province in southeast China in 1998. They killed the mites that were eating the bamboo, thus saving the plant.
From 1999, Zhang expanded her biological control method to more than 20 species of crops including citrus, tea, hop, cotton and apple.
For those achievements, she was awarded second prize at China's 2008 State Top Scientific and Technological Awards last Friday.
Over the past 10 years, her bio-control method has been used on 191,000 hectares of land in more than 20 Chinese provinces. It helped reduce the use of pesticides by more than 3,200 tons and saved 870,000 farmers more than 180 million yuan (US$26 million) on pest control.
Zhang said the greatest obstacle was, and still is, persuading farmers to avoid using pesticides. They don't trust you and they even throw the free predators away."
Then Zhang began selling mites instead of giving them away. She then promised to pay for all the losses if the mites failed.
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