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Article: Diatomaceous Earth Wrecks Insects' Internal Water Balance
- Article from:
- Agricultural Research
- Article date:
- July 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 U.S. Government Printing Office. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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What's a natural way to kill insects in food processing plants? The answer has been around for 20 million years: diatomaceous earth (DE). But DE isn't earth - or even dirt. It's the broken-up shells of tiny plants, called diatoms, that lived in the sea roughly 20 million years ago. Today, these fossilized skeletons are being combined with heat treatment as an alternative to methyl bromide for controlling insects in flour mills and other food processing plants.
'Turning up the heat creates one big oven for the insect pests. The heat breaks down the waxy layers of their exoskeletons, and the DE absorbs the layers, disrupting their internal water balance. Without this ...