Taming the ravenous boll weevil

Business

The boll weevil – the snaggle-toothed cotton-killer that burrowed its way into the South’s economy and lore – is dead and gone from Georgia, virtually every farm east of the Mississippi River and 94 percent of the entire country.

(From left) Brothers Kevin Hendrix, Cole Hendrix and Greg Hendrix take a break recently during cotton picking operations near Statesboro. "Definitely, the boll weevil was a bad boy," said Kevin Hendrix.

Farmers pack a module of cotton at Hendrix Farms in Statesboro. It wasn't until 2002, that USDA officially declared the bugger eradicated in Georgia. Five years without weevils is cause for celebration.

In Enterprise, Ala., the South's most famous memorial to the blasted weevil stands. In 1919, as the bug decimated cotton fields, enterprising townsfolk realized their community needed to diversify its economy. So they erected the Boll Weevil Monument -- in "profound appreciation of the Boll Weevil and what it has done as the herald of prosperity."

The weevil's century-long rampage across the South took a heavy toll on farmers, taxpayers, the environment and a rural way of life that withstood decades of heartache and upheaval.

A trap does its best to attract the destructive boll weevil. Sex ultimately saved Georgia cotton. Decades of pesticide spraying barely dented the weevil's appetite. But a marriage of chemistry (pesticides) and biology (pheromones) finally bested the little bugger. Federal and university researchers discovered the pheromone, or scent, that weevils give off when they want to make whoopee. The horny beetles are then lured into bright-green traps filled with insecticide that encircle fields.

Fransisco Ramos works at Hendrix Farms. Cotton, again, is the state's top crop worth a half-billion dollars.

Cole Hendrix, co-owner of Hendrix Farms, operates one of six John Deer cotton pickers used on fields near Statesboro.

Today, the Georgia eradication programs costs farmers only $2.50 per acre, down from $35, to kill weevils.

In the 1980s, the weevil had flattened Georgia's cotton industry as yields hit record lows.

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(From left) Brothers Kevin Hendrix, Cole Hendrix and Greg Hendrix take a break recently during cotton picking operations near Statesboro. "Definitely, the boll weevil was a bad boy," said Kevin Hendrix.

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