The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded almost $600,000 in grants to an Arizona university for bug research.
The money is going to two different types of research at the University of Arizona’s entomology department.
$250,000, for one year, is going to support the Arizona Pest Management Center, formed to be an education and outreach program for the state’s farmers.
$330,000 is going to study, over three years, a new way to control weeds and disease in lettuce crops. Rather than manual labor, the research suggests a soil steaming device could lower the use of pesticides.
The steam would disinfest the ground lettuce grows in and could reduce yield lost to disease by 80 percent or more.
