By Keona Ellis
Communications Intern
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agriculture Research Service (ARS) opened the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville on May 27.
This research facility will work to manage and eliminate the invasive fly and tick pests that threaten the U.S. cattle industry through innovative tools and advanced technologies.
“The brand new Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory will allow us to research and find new active measures to keep current and future threats away from our borders,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, said. “We have taken extraordinary actions to keep New World screwworm out of the United States, and this lab will help us accelerate our offensive efforts to drive this pest further away from our borders.”
The 52,000-square-foot facility will include state-of-the-art laboratories, advanced cattle facilities and a genomics core to drive research that delivers innovative control technologies for the livestock industry, according to USDA.
It will house the ARS Livestock Arthropod Pest Research Unit and the Veterinary Pest Genetics Research Unit.
These units, according to USDA, help improve the health, sustainability and profitability of U.S. livestock production while protecting the nation’s food supply from damaging arthropod pests, including biting flies, ticks and the New World screwworm.
“This new laboratory will equip our researchers with advanced tools to combat the most destructive invasive insects already impacting the United States, as well as those posing future threats at our borders,” Joon Park, ARS administrator, said. “The important ARS research conducted here in Kerrville will continue to play a vital role in protecting and strengthening the future of the U.S. cattle industry.”
These on-site research opportunities include improved surveillance and trapping tools, novel insecticides and acaricides, enhanced pesticide delivery techniques for cattle and wildlife, sustainable treatments to prevent and mitigate outbreaks of invasive/quarantine arthropod species, improved approaches to combat pesticide resistance and insect genomics to identify pest vulnerabilities.
The laboratory is named after Drs. Edward F. Knipling and Raymond C. Bushland, two influential and pioneering USDA researchers.
“The Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory—named after ARS pioneers that every entomologist and entomology student knows of through their breakthrough work—will build on their legacy by protecting livestock health, ensuring that America’s ranches remain productive, safe and profitable for generations to come,” said Dr. Scott Hutchins, USDA undersecretary for Research, Education and Economics
The new facility also builds on the legacy of historic research conducted at previous ARS facilities, which includes studying the biology of the New World screwworm, developing pesticides for biting flies and ticks on cattle and wildlife and sequencing the genome of over 25 important livestock arthropod pest species.
Leave A Comment