Pest Infestation Research

Abstract

DURING the period from 1927 until the outbreak of the Second World War, Prof. J. W. Munro devoted a great part of his energies to building up in the Imperial College of Science and Technology an organisation for the scientific study and development of applied entomology in the social field of stored products. The Empire Marketing Board supported this enterprise, and so did sections of the trade which handled such products as dried fruit, tobacco and cacao. A great deal of valuable work was done ; but the main section of the industry, that dealing with cereals, was not interested. Only in 1938 were industrial interests sufficiently concerned to approach the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and to share the cost of a survey to discover as much as p possible about the facts of infestation in Great Britain. The results of this survey were such as to result in 1940 in the establishment of a Pest Infestation Research Laboratory by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, which took over in large part Prof. Munro's premises and staff at Slough. Rapid expansion followed during the War and post-War years. The history and achievements of the laboratory have now been set out in a pamphlet entitled “Pest Infestation Research 1947’ (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 6d. net). This is in effect the first report from the Pest Infestation Laboratory. It gives a most interesting account of the research that is being carried out on the biology of the pests of stored products, notably on the use of carbondioxide production as a measure of infestation in grain, on the application of fumigants to stored products in barges and warehouses and silo bins, on the use of insecticidal dusts and sprays under ware house conditions, on the protective impregnation of sacks with insecticides, on the development of spraying equipment and many other matters. It is evident that the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research is pursuing an enlightened policy of carrying out research at all levels, from the fundamental to the applied, in its own laboratory.