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CSU emeritus chemical and biological engineering professor Jim Linden hopes a pesticide he helped create will be just the right formula for keeping the bark beetle at bay in Colorado. Called Organic Disease Control, or ODC, Linden said the pesticide is all-natural and triggers a tree’s defenses against the bark beetle, driving beetles from pine trees and preventing others from burrowing inside.
“What happens is, when it’s applied to the plant, the plant thinks it’s being attacked by a fungus or bacteria or pine beetle, and it mounts its own defenses,” Linden said. “It’s a natural response that the plant has to
these pathogens.”
ODC isn’t new. Linden, Knutson and Agri-House chief Richard Stoner applied for a patent for ODC in 1994, and it was tested on beans by NASA aboard the space shuttle and the Mir Space Station in 1998. The Forest Service tested ODC on trees affected by beetles in 2008.
The U.S. Forest Service is spending millions on dealing with beetle-killed trees threatening to fall on people, homes, roads and power lines. Working with Berthoud-based AgriHouse Inc., Linden developed the pesticide with Ken Knutson, Colorado State University associate professor emeritus of horticulture and landscape architecture, and hopes private landowners and public land management agencies will take notice.
AgriHouse claims ODC will make pine trees produce 40 percent more sap than without it. The sap is a tree’s natural defense against the beetle. So far, Linden said, the U.S. Forest Service hasn’t expressed interest in using ODC in the Roosevelt or other national forests in Colorado. Linden said, “Perhaps in a year’s time, the Forest Service will see how effective it has been in its use by many, many private landowners.”
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