Development of a Fatty Acid Emulsifiable Concenrate Formulation as a Biopesticide for Livestock Fly Control

Previous work has established that the C8910 a mixture of volatile fatty acids (octanoicnonanoic and decanoic acids) has both repellent and insecticidal activity against avariety of biting flies including stable and horn flies.Existing EPA registeredformulations of C8910 for livestock fly control are oil solutions or adsorptions ontocommon clays that have been at relatively high concentrations of fatty acids (15% totalfatty acids).While the dust formulation is cost competitive with traditional pesticidedusts when used in dust bags this form of treatment is not suitable for many producersand the oil formulations are too expensive for cattle fly control.Therefore we areproposing to develop an emulsifiable concentrate formulation of C8910 that can be fielddiluted with water and applied to cattle with manual or automated sprayers.User costestimates show that a C8910 EC is cost-competitive with traditional pesticide ECs andinitial tests have shown that an aqueous dilution ofC8910 EC will kill stable flies andhorn flies at relatively low concentrations (1% or less).We propose to optimize theC8910 EC formulation in the laboratory to insure that the EC and aqueous dilution arephysically and chemically stable while maintaining a high level of pesticidal activity atlow actives concentration.Follow on field tests at Arkansas and Nebraska will optimizespray variables (dilution level spray nozzle and volume and spray frequency) to achieveand maintain horn fly numbers below the economic impact level.Successful completionof Phase I will be followed by Phase II activities to include additional field testing againsthorn flies and stable flies which will be necessary for EPA registration and ultimately tomarket entry.Stratacor s collaboration with companies for raw material manufacture(Emery Oleochemicals) and marketing (Ecovet) have resulted in the successful marketentrance of an oil formulation of C8910 (Ecovet Fly Repellent) we are eager to bringother formulations to market.