ISCA TECHNOLOGIES, INC. — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.1

Description

The southern pine beetles, which can kill thousands of trees in epidemic attacks, had never been found beyond the pitch pine forests of the American South, because the winters were too cold. But they have migrated to New Jersey, where they have destroyed more than 30,000 acres of forest since 2002. And, according to a recent report of the New York Times, the warmer winters have now beckoned them to New England. Alarmed scientists first discovered the beetles last year along a front stretching more than 200 miles, from central Long Island to Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard, a region long thought to be far too frigid for these tiny killer beetles.The area in North America being affected by bark beetles that respond to verbenone is massive and, due to global warming, it is ever spanding to new areas, reaching today a scale never seen in recorded history. There are no safe semiochemical tools and management options with the capacity to stop SPB attacks on southern yellow pine. At ISCA Technologies, we will create and further optimize effectiive, environmentally safe,tools to manageSPB to protect national forest resources for our current needs and those of future generations. SPB REPEL is our response to this SPB threat.