Similar Tastes: Thanks to the appetite of a sixth grader, scientists now believe the navel orange-worm prefers pistachios over almonds

摘要

UNIVERSITY of California (UC)-Davis scientists are changing their navel orange-worm (NOW) research direction after a sixth grader showed that the major agricultural pest prefers pistachios over almonds and walnuts. Conventional wisdom had been that NOW prefer almonds. "Everybody knows that navel orangeworms prefer almonds," says Walter Leal, a UC-Davis chemical ecologist and professor of entomology. However, after his 11-year-old son proved that notion wrong in an elementary school science fair experiment, Leal's lab has begun studying NOW's attraction to pistachios to find more effective methods of controlling the pest.