No more wasp issues at one of Ireland’s best known fruit-farms
A fruit farm in Co Wexford in Ireland is about to wave goodbye to its seasonal problem of wasp-infestation.
Thanks to new technology from Irish-based startup Waspstar, it is hoped for a near 100pc reduction in stings, nuisance and crop loss at Wheelock’s Fruit Farm near Enniscorthy, all without killing a single wasp.
In addition to producing strawberries, Wheelock’s depends on visitors to the farm to pick fruit over summer and a wasp-free environment is seen by them as an added attraction for families.
Instead of killing the wasps, Waspstar’s unique system relocates them to a safe location on site, away from people and from valuable crops. Wasps are attracted to both ripening fruit and areas where people gather in late summer as the insects become hungry when their natural food source in the nest dries up. Waspstar eliminates the problem by providing the wasps with a nutritious food preferable to both the fruit on the farm and the food humans eat, but not as good as they would get in the nest.
In trials carried out at Tayto Park, Ireland’s best known theme park in 2021, a 93 per cent reduction in stings was achieved during testing of the Waspstar system. Witnessing this, George Wheelock, owner of Wheelock’s Farm, was convinced he needed the system.
Wasps are important pollinators to the fruit industry and vineyards. They are an important natural predatory pest eliminator themselves, removing an estimated 14,000 tonnes of unwanted insects from gardens, orchards, vineyards and farms in the UK alone every year. Wasps are vectors of the all-important saccharomyces cerevisiae or brewers’ yeast, without which we have no bread, beer or wine. These fascinating animals are therefore vital to our biodiversity and our food system.
But in late summer, wasps can create problems when their natural food source from the nest begins to dry up and they go hungry.
Conventional methods of wasp-control have proven ineffective and unpleasant. Wasp traps are cruel and unsightly and have been shown to actually increase the risk of stings in many cases, due to the release of stress pheromones by dying wasps.
Waspstar’s technology is completely scalable and is suitable for a range of applications in the public and private sectors including hospitality, entertainment, municipalities and agriculture.
Perhaps most importantly, Waspstar is dedicated to the promotion and protection of the ecology and biodiversity. According to the Taoiseach of Ireland Mícheál Martin, restoring and protecting our delicate biodiversity is one of the most urgent tasks we face in order to secure a future with both a liveable environment and food security for our children. “… the business case for biodiversity is compelling: the benefits of restoring nature outweigh the costs ten-fold, and the cost of inaction is even higher.” he said in his keynote speech at the recent National Biodiversity Conference, held in Dublin Castle in early June.