We've been having a build-up of ticks over the last several years on our little corner of green. Last year was
terrible; we were having to do tick checks every time we came in from the front
yard. How my
rabbits, whose barn is located in the corner where the infestation was the worst, escaped with zero ticks is a complete mystery!
About midsummer, when I was researching tick control options that wouldn't kill everything else (including us and the
bees and the bunnies), and heard about Metarhizium anisopliae (Met52) fungus and its effect on ticks. Even better, there's some evidence that it can kill varroa mites, which are a particular plague on
bees. Apparently, the pandemic killed off the one company that was producing Met52 here in the States, so the hunt was on. Could I obtain spores and incubate them myself? That seemed like waaay more of a learning curve than I was prepared for. Instead, I found a mycologist in town and contacted her about potentially incubating some. She agreed. I paid her a consulting fee and for the product, she ordered spores and started working on it. Some things went...awry...and it ended up taking 8 months to get the product I'd paid up front for, and it was significantly less product than I anticipated. (I won't be doing this with her again and won't be naming her company.)
Got the inoculated grain in March and spread it around the property with a heavy concentration in the really bad corner by the rabbit barn. So far this year...
2 ticks found, both before they got stuck in.
That's a HUGE improvement over last year. I've also been out there more often this year, so I'm counting this as a win.
Anyone else used Met52? Have sources? If I can't find another source so I can give the property another inoculation this fall, I may have to learn how to do this myself.
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