Scientist Touts Fungus Over Pesticides : Agriculture: Researcher’s weapon is a strain of the <i> Beauveria Bassiana, </i> which attaches itself to the insects, digs into their skin--and eats their tiny innards out.

Petri dish in hand, James E. Wright is fighting two enemies at once.

Enemy No. 1 is tiny pests such as the boll weevil and the sweet-potato whitefly that destroy crops around the world.

Enemy No. 2 is the chemical insecticides that farmers spray to kill Enemy No. 1.

His weapon is a strain of the Beauveria Bassiana fungus, which attaches itself to the insects, digs into their skin--and eats their tiny innards out.

“These are dead weevils,” Wright said, holding a petri dish of ugly critters covered with his white fungus. “Beautiful, I think.”

The research entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s subtropical research lab in Weslaco is among a growing number of scientists pioneering growth in biological pest controls for everything from cotton to eggplants to poinsettias.

“Insecticides are a dying breed,” Wright said. Chemicals, he argues, are both ineffective and harmful to the environment.

“When you spray them with insecticides, the insects develop resistance. They lay more eggs,” he said.

“We can’t just scorch the earth anymore,” said Jane Yuster, president of Fermone Corp. Inc., the Phoenix-based company marketing Wright’s fungus under an agreement with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service.

“I think a decade from now you are going to see a tremendous amount of biologicals. Maybe most of the pesticides will be biologicals by then,” said Al Heier, spokesman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA is proposing new rules to give biologicals priority consideration on the list of pest-control products the agency reviews for its approval.

The most environmentally harmful chemicals will likely be phased out in the process, Heier said.

“I think farmers would welcome the biologicals, but you are going to have to demonstrate that they work,” he said.

There’s no need to convince L. Reed Green, a private agriculture consultant. Several of his clients began experimenting with Wright’s fungus on their cotton fields between Houston and the Coastal Bend this summer.

“I didn’t know exactly what to expect using it, but after getting into the season we found it did a pretty good job controlling the weevil,” Green said.

Green said his only big question about Wright’s fungus is the price.

“If it’s reasonable, and it appears it can be reasonable, then it probably has a place out here,” said Green, a proponent of “integrated pest management.” That’s the latest buzzword for urging growers to use a mix of biologicals, traditional insecticides and alternative farming practices.

Wright said his fungus is a naturally occurring organism native to many regions of the globe. Marketed worldwide as Naturalis-L, the strain has an EPA permit for experimental use in the U.S.

The product has shown promise in killing boll weevil and whitefly infestations on cotton, poinsettias and a variety of fruit and vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, melons and eggplants.

The fungus has a short life in the field, causing no harm to the plants or the environment, Wright said. In fact, it leaves alive parasites and predators that are natural enemies of the whiteflies.

Someday, biological technology could replace a can of bug spray with a roach-killing fungus, Yuster said. But she cautioned that there is no panacea.

“I don’t think that the biologicals are going to do it all by themselves,” she said. “ . . . The insects are unbelievable at adapting to anything we throw at them.

“After we are all gone, there are still going to be insects.”