This is an interview we had with Massachusetts entomologist, Dave Simser. Dave is a long-time client, personal friend, enemy to ticks, savior to whales, fan of good bugs, and all-around good guy who has our respect and gratitude. Without further ado, here are David’s excellent responses:
Interview
The headings below are our questions; the blockquotes that follow are Dave Simser’s responses.
How did you get started as a biocontrol practitioner?
“With several years as a field entomologist already under my pith helmet, I entered graduate school with an emphasis in biocontrol, as I could not see myself pushing pesticides for a living. My focus there was directed at the sex life and times of a smallish parasitic wasp and I guess the hours of staring into a Petri dish waiting for the blessed event must have put me over the edge. After doing what a graduate student does eventually-graduate, I went back to the USDA and continued my fascination with all things parasitic. When the company became suffocating, I started a minuscule business with a friend, ostensibly to practice biological control in the real world. I have been, unbelievably, practicing biocontrol now for over three decades!”
What sort of challenges have you experienced?
“On a personal basis, I have lost several teeth because I could not pay for their repair, so I would have to say that you’re never going to get rich, or even perhaps solvent, from working as a biocontrol practitioner. On a professional level, the cavemen and cowboys out there took great delight in deriding the biological control concept, informing me that ‘customers don’t want to see your little bugs flying out of containers, they want to see a lot of dead bugs on the ground.’ To that effect, over and over.”
What was the biggest failure?
“What is the working definition of failure? ‘The condition or fact of not achieving the desired end or ends.’ For me, acquiring and liberating beneficial species at the correct time in the life stage of a pest could never end in failure, as the act itself was a successful end. The rare failure, I suppose, was in receiving ladybird beetles that had perished in the summer sun somewhere in transit, or of having been delivered millions of dead nematodes, and feeling responsible for their demise. Working with whole living things is an art as much as a science.”
What was the biggest success?
“Trying to explain to someone just what it is you’re doing, and seeing the doubtful look on their face, trying to gauge whether I’m mad or merely quixotic. Practically speaking, existing for years in a business I started in a place where no one knew what I was doing made me feel pretty successful. Showing a greenhouse manager the voracious feeding of larval Cryptolaemus montrouzeri released minutes before his question ’so can you show me biocontrol in action?,’ spreading milky spore and spraying nematodes on the lawn of an Oscar winning actress, releasing predaceous mites with inmates from the county lock up, all pretty cool and precious to me.”
What advice would you offer other just getting started?
“Find a great biological control agent distributor like the Green Spot; they’ll never let you down!”
If you’re interested in being interviewed and have something to bring to the table, please contact us. We’re also interested in publishing articles written by our readers, friends, and customers that others can get something from. We do have a few more interviews and a couple of things lined up, but we can always use more. Talk to us.
