A common cockroach species is becoming essentially immune to pesticides, researchers say.
A new study by researchers at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, found evidence that the German cockroach species is becoming harder to kill as the worldwide pest rapidly develops cross-resistance to multiple types of insecticide at one time. The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports last month.
The researchers tested three methods of professional-grade insecticides on German cockroaches at multi-unit buildings in Indiana and Illinois over a six-month period in 2016. First, they rotated between three different insecticides each month for three months and then repeated. Second, they used a mixture of two insecticides sprayed monthly. Lastly, they used a single treatment -- abamectin gel bait -- once a month in an area where cockroaches showed a low resistance to abamectin.
"If you have the ability to test the roaches first and pick an insecticide that has low resistance, that ups the odds," Scharf said."But even then, we had trouble controlling populations." "We would see resistance increase four- or six-fold in just one generation," Scharf said."We didn't have a clue that something like that could happen this fast."
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