Irapuato, Gto., April 19, 2017.- In 2013, the corn bollworm devastated 450 thousand corn hectares, the plague became resistant to the chemicals and farmers were left without alternatives to fight it. To face this problem, a group of researchers of the University of Guanajuato (UG) develops viral insecticides, that only attack insects that damage the crops and not the environment.

The biological control of plagues is an alternative that is used especially in the first world countries, where they have proved their efficiency, however, in Mexico there is a new alternative, and the University of Guanajuato is pioneer in its use.

Dr. Maria Cristina del Rincón Castro, professor in the Department of Food of Campus Irapuato-Salamanca, leads a multidisciplinary team of researchers who work in the development of viral bio insecticides that can be applied in the Mexican field, specifically in Guanajuato.

The researcher has worked for 26 years with entomopathogen viruses –that reproduce exclusively in insects—isolates them in the laboratory and selects the most aggressive so they kill the bollworms in less days and not affect the crops.

She recognizes that in Mexico there is certain resistance to work with virus, "but it is much more dangerous that for 50 years they are filling the crops with tons of chemical insecticides, which are unspecific, kill not only damaging insects, but mammals, birds, fish, and damage the health of the human being".

The project implies to study biology and the behavior of virus, isolate the genetic material from which they are made, sequence the virus genome, see how many genes they got, how they enter the insect and why they kill it. It is a long-term research, because the objective is to pass the basic research to an applied one, explains the scholar ascribed to the Division of Life Sciences.

In the project, financed by UG through the Division of Support to Research and Postgraduate (DAIP), collaborates a professor from the Department of Agronomy, Dr. Dario Salas; a professor of the Research and Advanced Studies Center of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (CINVESTAV) Irapuato, Dr. Jorge Ibarra, and UG's postgraduate students, and students from the majors in Food, Agronomy and Environmental Engineer.

Researchers go out to the field, seek the plague –corn, broccoli, lettuce, apple, etc.—analyze what the worm is sick with, transport to the laboratory and isolate the causal agent of that disease. Besides, they "cultivate insects" to have the ideal conditions that allow to prove the efficiency of the viruses.

The part referring to basic research is financed by the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT), in that project they work with broccoli and cauliflower plagues.

The intention is to isolate ten native strains, study the virus in the laboratory, and once it has been characterized, return to the field to kill the insect.

This technology is so simple –sustains Dr. Cristina del Rincón—that "the same farmer can spray the viral product, collect the worms that died by the virus, grind them and use them again as insecticide which is recycling." It doesn't harm human beings because those viruses are specific for insects, she emphasizes.

Besides, it is unlikely for it to mutate, because it is a virus of more than 150 genes, that makes it to be difficult because the insects develop a resistance to 150 different proteins. "That is why they are innocuous, safe from the ecological point of view, and for us, who apply it and eat it from those plants", assures the doctor in bioscience.

The following objective of the researchers, is to contact a company to convince them to invest in producing the virus commercially. Until now, one company of Puebla is interested, but Dr. del Rincón, wants to persuade businessmen in the state so the benefits of the virus bio insecticides reach the central region crops.