By Scott Bauer – USDA’s Agricultural Research Service image gallery, Image Number K7265-11., Public Domain
Last week the USDA opened a new Livestock Insect Research Lab in Kerrville, Texas, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is highlighting their long history of research in animal insects at their facilities in Texas.
Kim Lohmeier, Director of the Knippling Bushland U.S. Livestock Insect Research Lab, shares details on this effort “ARS has a really long history of working on insect pests. We’re very specialized here in that we target the ones that impact livestock and wildlife, and we’re actually going to celebrate this year, our 80th year, of doing this type of research here in Kerr County. The first lab was opened in 1946 and operated at that site. It was about 14 miles from where our current lab is, and so they did research there on all these flies and ticks until the mid-60s when the lab was moved to its current location.”
Lohmeier also said “During this whole time, ARS has never stopped working on screwworm. Screwworm are origins of the work we did actually start back with screwworm to labs that was in Menard, Texas, in the 1930s. Our lab that started here in Kerr County in the 40s was a consolidation of three other labs in the state of Texas that were all working on either screwworms or ticks.”
“And so we’ve got a long history of trying to fight these pests, especially screwworm, but also ticks and other biting flies like horn flies and stable flies’ Lohmeier added.
/audio
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet.