Here's a neat story of a couple Montana youths trying to make lemonade out of lemons.
Paul
Brothers' bug business controls noxious weeds the nontoxic way
Some parents might not be too pleased to find their kids' live bug collection in the family refrigerator.
But Missoula's Bob and Kandee Rich weren't upset when their sons, Jonathan and Matthew, collected about 2,000 weevils last weekend and stored them in ice cream cartons in the fridge - right next to the orange juice and milk.
In fact, they couldn't have been happier with their sons' interest in insects, which will pay off at 50 cents per weevil.
Jonathan, 18, who will be a senior at Sentinel High School, and Matthew, 15, who will be a sophomore at Sentinel, are partners in their own business - "Weedbusters," suppliers of biological control agents to combat knapweed and leafy spurge.
In other words, the brothers are bug dealers.
And with the ubiquitous infestations of noxious weeds in the Missoula area, business is steady, and job security seems likely to last.
"We ain't afraid of no weed," a takeoff from the movie "Ghostbusters," is the brothers' motto.
They got their start in the bio-bug business last year at the suggestion of their father, Bob Rich, a forester for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation in Missoula. Working with biological agents to control weeds on state lands is part of his job.
"Dad is a big advocate and supporter of biological control," said Jonathan Rich. "They're more of a long-term control for weeds. Since neither one of us had a summer job, we thought we'd do this."
Bob Rich noticed something different last year about a field near the Rich home in Missoula's South Hills. It had been heavily infested with knapweed. But the knapweed was disappearing and native grasses and wildflowers were coming back.
He investigated and discovered large populations of two kinds of knapweed weevils, which are a type of beetle. The insects are native to Eastern Europe where they are natural parasites of knapweed. The bugs were first introduced in Montana over a decade ago by government agencies to combat the invasive weeds here.
From his experience with DNRC, working with insects as biological control agents, Bob Rich said he knew that demand for the insects by land management agencies and private landowners was high, and often required a long wait to get them.
He got permission from the owner of the field to collect insects and to establish a "bug corral" to raise others on the land.
Then he turned the project over to his sons.
They put an ad in the Missoulian offering to deliver the following:
- Larinus minutus, the lesser knapweed flower weevil.
- Cyphocleonus achates, the knapweed root weevil.
- Two species of flea beetles that attack leafy spurge.
And the orders started rolling in.
"Last summer, we started getting calls and we were pretty busy for a few weeks," said Jonathan. "But then the insect numbers dropped off because it was so late in the season."
This summer they're getting an earlier start.
Populations of the knapweed flower weevils and leafy spurge flea beetles are reaching their peak during June, and collecting them is surprisingly easy, if you know the right locations, said Matthew.
Using cloth "sweep nets" that look like butterfly nets, the brothers wade through a patch of knapweed or spurge that they know holds the insects, and swing their nets back and forth through the plants. A 15-minute sweep can produce hundreds, even thousands, of bugs.
The most time consuming part of their job is sorting out the variety of other insects, spiders and plant parts that inevitably end up in the nets with the weevils and flea beetles, and counting them out.
The Rich brothers sell 200 knapweed flower weevils for $100, 100 knapweed root weevils for $100, or 1,000 leafy spurge flea beetles for $100.
They're still refining their sorting and counting process, they said.
"We used to be a little apprehensive about sticking our hands in the bugs," said Matthew. "We used to use knives to pick 'em up. Now we just pick 'em up with our hands. We really don't mind it now."
"They don't bite or anything," added Jonathan. "They just crawl on you."
They use a "soil sifter," with a series of progressively smaller screens to sort out the bugs. Then they put them in a cooler in the refrigerator.
"The cool slows down their body process so they burn less energy," explained Matthew.
Rather than count out bugs one at a time, they use a clear film canister with a line marked on it at the level of a previously counted number of bugs, as a measure. Then the sorted, counted bugs are stored for delivery in ice cream cartons in the family fridge.
While the flea beetles and flower weevils are easy to collect with nets, the root weevils live on the ground and pose a different problem to collect. The solution was a "bug corral" the boys constructed. It's a 30-by-30-foot miniature fence, about a foot high, made of galvanized flashing metal, partially buried so that the weevils can't escape underneath it, and bent over toward the inside of the corral at the top so they can't crawl out.
The bug business is just getting started this summer and Weedbusters has yet to turn a profit, according to the partners.
"Last year we started late, but we made some money," said Jonathan. "This year we're still in the red from our ads and bug corral supplies, bug nets and stuff, and printing business cards and information packets."
Startup capital came from their father, the boys said.
"I'm the unpaid technical consultant," Bob Rich said.
Their friends have been curious but somewhat perplexed about their summer job, Jonathan and Matthew said.
"When I told some friends last year, they thought it was a little weird," Jonathan said.
"But we wouldn't let them be partners," added Matthew.
"My friends say 'What were you doing walking around that field swinging this white thing?' " said Jonathan. "I can't complain. It's a summer job."
"Pretty much everybody that drives by gives us a weird look," Matthew said.
Jonathan said he's interested in pursuing a business degree in college, while Matthew leans more toward the sciences.
The combination of interests serves them well, according to Jonathan.
"We work well together," he said.
So far, the boys said, their customers have been private landowners, both small and large.
"They're mostly people who are concerned about the environment and weed problems," Jonathan said.
The brothers and their father emphasize that biological control insects are not a quick fix for weed problems.
"You have to wait about three years to notice any impact," Bob said. "It's a long-term solution. We get a lot of people calling us who don't want to use herbicides. But we're an advocate of an integrated management approach."
"You just have to use herbicides once," added Matthew. "And then let the bugs take over. It's an exponential component thing. It takes thousands of bugs to have an impact. They multiply. They keep growing until their numbers get up high enough. And then they start destroying some knapweed."
About a half-dozen private businesses in the state collect and sell insects as biological control agents for weeds, according to Jerry Marks, Missoula County Extension agent. The Rich brothers' is the only one in the Missoula area.
Insects don't eradicate weeds, Marks said.
"It's better to view insects as stress agents, rather than control agents," Marks said. "When you spray weeds, you expect them to die. It's a much more subtle impact with insects. This is their food and their home. So they don't kill their food and home. But they do stress the plant. The seed insects kill the seeds and the root insects attack the roots. And the plants become stunted and it shortens their life cycle."
That stress makes the weeds more susceptible to other weed management tools, such as competitive vegetation, grazing and herbicides, he added.
"So you use insects as one part of a way to control weeds," Marks said. "Knapweed is very susceptible to herbicides. But we have millions of acres of knapweed. We're not going to be able to treat all that. Insects can help with that.
"Leafy spurge flea beetles stress the spurge, and as the spurge declines, so will the beetle population. Then the spurge comes back. So you need to do other things. You can combine it with sheep grazing, which is very compatible with beetles. Spurge is much more resistant to herbicides. So if you stress it with sheep grazing and beetles, then herbicide can be more effective, and keep it from spreading."
In their information packet about their business, the Rich brothers include directions to a couple of sites in Missoula where biological control agents have had a dramatic impact on knapweed and leafy spurge several years after insects were released.
The brothers will deliver the bugs to customers in the Missoula area, or people can pick them up at the Rich home, or Weedbusters will mail the bugs to customers by overnight express in a box packed with blue ice to keep the insects cool.
Next year, on advice of Marks, the Weedbusters plan to add Dalmatian toadflax insects to their product line.
"I used to look at a field full of knapweed and think, 'What an ecological disaster,' " Bob said. "Now I think 'customers.' "
"Considering how much knapweed is around this place," added Matthew, "I think we'll have customers for awhile."
For more information, or to order bugs, call Weedbusters at 251-4261.
Reporter Daryl Gadbow can be reached at 523-5264 or at
[email protected]
