Abstract
Two ”mega-experiments,” the Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment (PBWEE) and the Huffaker Project, dominated the politics of entomological research during the 1970s. Both were subject to internal strife and external criticisms, and both weathered the storms to find renewal in the form of new projects. Traumas within the PBWEE were particularly severe, because the results and their significance were subject to radically different interpretations. Evaluation of the PBWEE divided those with primary allegiance to total population management (TPM) against those aligned with integrated pest management (IPM) and thus led to a sharpening of the distinctions between the two approaches to insect control. Individual entomologists were caught in maelstroms of disputes that required them to reexamine their own positions on research directions. It had been possible before the PBWEE to entertain both IPM and TPM as guides to experimentation. After the PBWEE, life in the gray area between IPM and TPM became more difficult but not impossible.
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Reference Notes
Evaluation of the Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment, USD A, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, p. 1 (hereafter cited as USD A, Evaluation). This unpublished report bears no date but was prepared by late 1973. It contains 60 pages plus three appendices: Intensive Field Sampling in Eradication and First Buffer Areas, Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment, 1973, by E. P. Lloyd; Relative Populations and Suggested Long-Range Movements of Boll Weevils Throughout the Area of the Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment as Indicated by Traps in 1973, by W. H. Cross; and Use of In-Field Traps Baited with Grandlure in the Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment in 1973, by D. D. Hardee. This document was the only written summary of the PBWEE until 1976 when the USDA published the proceedings of a symposium held in Feb., 1974 (note 2).
E. F. Knipling, “Report of the Technical Guidance Committee for the Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment,” in Boll Weevil Suppression, Management, and Elimination Technology (Proceedings of a conference, Feb. 13–15, 1974, Memphis Tenn.), ARS-S-71 (Washington, D.C.: USDA, 1976), pp. 122–125 (hereafter cited as ARS, Boll Weevil Suppression). This volume is the only official publication of the results of the PBWEE, issued approximately two and one-half years after USDA, Evaluation.
E. F. Knipling, Technically Feasible Approaches to Boll Weevil Eradication, presented at Beltwide Cotton Production-Mechanization Conference, Hot Springs, Ark., Jan. 11–12, 1968, pp. 6, 11.
A detailed description of the PBWEE can be found in F. J. Boyd, “Operational plan and execution of the Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment,” in ARS, Boll Weevil Suppression, pp. 62–69.
The original experimental design was described in National Cotton Council, Selection of Locations for Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiments, Aug. 15, 1969, pp. 5–9, unpublished report by a subcommittee of the Special Study Committee on Boll Weevil Eradication.
USDA, Evaluation, pp. 1–2.
ARS, Boll Weevil Suppression, pp. 70–72.
For those with a jaundiced sense of humor, one grower in the PBWEE area did not let the whereabouts of one of his cotton fields be known, and experimenters did not find it until Sept. 21, 1972, more than a year after the PBWEE began. This field was in fact a heavy producer of boll weevils. See USDA, Evaluation, p. 17.
O. T. Guice, Jr., “Regulatory activities carried on under the Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment,” in ARS, Boll Weevil Suppression, pp. 73–74. Guice was Director, Division of Plant Industry, Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce, and a member of the TGC.
For a discussion of regulatory problems in a national eradication effort, see H. L. Bruer, “Regulation aspects of boll weevil eradication in the cotton belt” (hereafter cited as Bruer, Regulation), in ARS, Boll Weevil Suppression, pp. 159–160.
T. B. Davich, D. D. Hardee, and Jesus Acâla M., Long-range dispersal of boll weevils determined with wing traps baited with males,J. Econ. Entomol. 63 (1970): 1706–1708.
Waldemar Klassen to T. W. Edminster, May 31, 1973, files of C. R. Parencia.
E. F. Knipling and J. R. Brazzel to Gordon E. Guyer, Feb. 27, 1973, files of C. R. Parencia.
Entomological Society of America Review Committee, The pilot boll weevil eradication experiment, Bull Entomol. Soc. Am. 19 (1973): 218–221 (hereafter cited as ESA Review Committee, The pilot).
D. D. Hardee and F. J. Boyd, “Trapping during the Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment, 1971–73” (hereafter cited as Hardee and Boyd, Trapping), in ARS, Boll Weevil Suppression, pp. 82–89; data cited are in Table 3, p. 83.
D. D. Hardee, “Development of boll weevil trapping technology,” in ibid., pp. 34–40.
F. J. Boyd, “Boll weevil population levels during the in-season and reproduction-diapause control phases of the Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment,” pp. 75–81 (hereafter cited as Boyd, Boll weevil population levels); and E. P. Lloyd and W. P. Scott, “Intensive sampling of twenty-five selected fields in eradication and first buffer areas of the Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment in 1973,” pp. 108–112; both in ARS, Boll Weevil Suppression.
Hardee and Boyd, Trapping, data from Table 9, p. 86.
Ibid., data from Table 6, p. 84.
Boyd, Boll weevil population levels, p. 79.
Hardee and Boyd, Trapping, data calculated from Table 6, p. 84.
Perry Lee Adkisson, personal interview, May 30–31, 1978.
Ibid.; C. R. Parencia to Participants [of Technical Guidance Committee, PBWEE], September 13, 1973, files of Charles R. Parencia.
Adkisson, personal interview.
Ibid.; J. Ritchie Smith to Individuals Listed on Attached Statement, Apr. 11, 1973, files of C. R. Parencia.
Handwritten note in files of Perry L. Adkisson.
Adkisson, personal interview.
E. F. Knipling, The Basic Principles of Insect Population Suppression and Management, Agriculture Handbook No. 512 (Washington, D.C.: USDA, 1979), pp. 537–538.I have been unable to locate any more precise statement Knipling made connecting his conclusions about the PBWEE with the data generated in the PBWEE.
W. H. Cross, “Relative populations and suggested Long-range movements of boll weevils throughout the area of the Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment as indicated by traps in 1973” (hereafter cited as Cross, Relative populations), in ARS, Boll Weevil Suppression, pp. 103–107.
Boyd, Boll weevil population levels, p. 81.
Cross, Relative populations, p. 104.
E. P. Lloyd, J. R. McCoy, and J. W. Haynes, “Release of sterile male boll weevils in the Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment in 1972–73,” in ARS, Boll Weevil Suppression, pp. 95–102.
E. F. Knipling, Suppression of pest Lepidoptera by releasing partially sterile males, BioScience 20 (1970): 465–470.
Ibid. The bodies of released insects were “ebony,” a phenotype caused by two recessive alleles. Matings between ebony and wild weevils produced the “bronze” phenotype, the genotype of which was the heterozygote.
M. E. Merkl, “Postexperiment developments of the Pilot Boll Weevil Eradication Experiment,” in ARS, Boll Weevil Suppression, pp. 119–121.
D. D. Hardee to J. R. Brazzel through T. B. Davich, Feb. 1, 1974; E. F. Knipling to D. D. Hardee through T. B. Davich, Feb. 5, 1974; both letters in files of J. R. Brazzel.
ESA Review Committee, The pilot.
Although I was not deeply involved with the writing of the Cotton Study Team report, I accept as a staff member for that effort an equal share of the responsibility for any of the report’s shortcomings. I believed at the time the report was released that it was fully adequate as a policy study. I continue to believe that the biological reasoning underlying the report’s skepticism on eradication is sound. The shortcomings became clear to me only after the passage of several years and lay in our inability at the time to comprehend the socio-political dimensions of the eradication movement. I continue to believe that the five-volume set from the Kennedy Committee is still one of the finest studies ever done on the problems associated with pest control.
E’. F. Knipling, personal interview, July 13–14, 1976.
Ibid.
E. F. Knipling to Sterling Hendricks, Dec. 16, 1974.
Robert E. Green to Reviewers of the Pesticide Study, Dec. 30, 1974.
Robert E. Green to E. F. Knipling, Apr. 24, 1975; E. F. Knipling to Robert E. Green, Apr. 29, 1975; E. F. Knipling to Philip Handler, June 25, 1975; E. F. Knipling to Philip Handler, July 18, 1975; E. F. Knipling to Philip Handler, Aug. 27, 1975; E. F. Knipling to John Coleman, Aug. 28, 1975; and Philip Handler to E. F. Knipling, Sept. 23, 1975. All of above supplied by E. F. Knipling, July 13–14, 1976.
Pest Control: An Assessment of Present and Alternative Technologies, Vol. 3, Cotton Pest Control (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1975), 139 pp.
Ibid., pp. 4–5.
Robert R. Coker to Perry Lee Adkisson, May 26, 1972, files of J. Ritchie Smith.
Overall Plan for a National Program to Eliminate the Boll Weevil from the United States (Memphis: National Cotton Council, Dec. 4, 1973), pp. 5, 6, 57 (hereafter cited as NCC, Overall Plan).
T. B. Davich to R. J. McCracken, Dec. 13, 1973, files of J. R. Brazzel.
Bruer, Regulation, in ARS, Boll Weevil Suppression, p. 159.
J. Ritchie Smith, personal interview, June 5, 1978.
J. R. Phillips, [comments], in ARS, Boll Weevil Suppression, p. 169.
Charles Lincoln, [comments], in ARS, Boll Weevil Suppression, p. 172; L. D. Newsom, “The elimination concept and its alternative,” in Ibid., pp. 149–153; Dan F. Clower, A Statement Regarding the Plan to Eradicate the Boll Weevil from the United States, presented to the American Farm Bureau Cotton Advisory Committee, Apr. 9, 1974.
Fowden G. Maxwell to Louis N. Wise, Apr. 17, 1974, files of J. Ritchie Smith.
W. L. Giles to John C. Stennis, June 25, 1974, files of J. Ritchie Smith; Louis N. Wise to Jamie L. Whitten, July 16, 1974, files of J. R. Brazzel; R. Dennis Rouse to Robert W. Long, 3 June 1974, files of J. Ritchie Smith.
P. L. Adkisson to L. D. Anderson, June 5, 1974, files of P. L. Adkisson; idem, personal interview.
F. J. Boyd to J. R. Brazzel, June 6, 1974, files of J. R. Brazzel.
Albert R. Russell to Earl L. Butz, Feb. 14, 1975, files of J. Ritchie Smith.
NCC, Overall Plan pp. 56–57.
U.S. Congress, House, Agriculture-Environmental and Consumer Protection Appropriation Bill, 1975, H. Rept. 1120, 93rd Congress, 2nd sess., 1975, p. 28.
U.S. Congress, House, Making Appropriations for Agriculture and Related Agencies Programs for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1976, and the Period Ending September 30, 1976, and for Other Purposes, H. Rept. 528, 94th Congress, 1st sess., 1976, p. 9; U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Appropriations, Agriculture and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1977, Hearings, Part 3, 94th Congress, 2nd sess., 1976, p. 458; U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Appropriations, Agriculture and Related Agencies for 1978, Hearings, Part 2, 95th Congress 1st sess., 1977, pp. 346–347; U.S. Congress, House, Agriculture and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, 1978. H. Rept. 384, 95th Congress, 1st sess., 1977, pp. 46–47.
U.S. Congress, House, Making Appropriations for Agriculture and Related Agencies Programs for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1976, and the Period Ending September 30, 1976, and for Other Purposes, H. Rept. 528, 94th Cong. 1st sess., 1976, p. 9; U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Appropriations, Agriculture and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1978, Hearings, Part 3, 94th Cong., 2nd sess., 1976, pp. 453–456; U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Appropriations, Agriculture and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1978, Hearings, Part 2, 95th Cong., 1st sess., 1977, p. 385; U.S. Congress, House, Agriculture and Related Agencies Bill, 1978, H. Rept. 384, 95th Cong., 1st sess., 1977, pp. 46–47.
U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Appropriations, Agriculture and Related Agencies Appropriations, Fiscal Year 1976, Hearings, Part 1, 94th Congress, 1st sess., 1975, pp. 92–94, 130–132.
U.S. Congress, Senate, Agriculture and Related Agencies Appropriation Bill, 1976, S. Rept. 293, 94th Cong., 1st sess., 1976, p. 18; U.S. Congress, House, Making Appropriations for Agriculture and Related Agencies Programs for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1976, and the Period Ending September 30, 1976, and for Other Purposes, H. Rept. 528, 94th Cong., 1st sess., 1975, p. 9.
Albert R. Russell to Beltwide Action Committee, Jan. 22, 1976, files of J. Ritchie Smith.
U.S. Congress, House, Agriculture and Related Agencies Appropriation Bill, 1977, H. Rept. 1224, 94th Cong., 2nd sess., 1976, pp. 41–42.
Robert R. Coker to Boll Weevil Action Committee on Boll Weevil Eradication, September 30, 1977, files of J. Ritchie Smith. Attached to this memorandum are press releases from the USDA and the National Cotton Council plus a summary prepared by the USDA of improvements in technology.
C. B. Huffaker to Proposed Ad Hoc Committee to consider “The Role of Economic and Systems Analysis in the IBP-Biological Control-Crop Ecosystems Project,” quotes on pp. 1 and 3, files of C. B. Huffaker.
J. C. Headley to Carl Huffaker, Sept. 21, 1973, files of C. B. Huffaker.
Richard B. Norgaard to J. C. Headley, Nov. 8, 1973, files of C. B. Huffaker.
F. N. David to C. B. Huffaker, Nov. 22, 1972, files of C. B. Huffaker.
Carl B. Huffaker to Christine Shoemaker, July 2, 1975, files of C. B. Huffaker.
Paul DeBach, personal interview, Mar. 22–23, 1977.
William E. Hazen, Memorandum to the Files, Apr. 3, 1973, 3 pp., files of C. B. Huffaker.
Carl Huffaker to Subproject Leaders, Executive Committee, Apr. 17, 1973, files of C. B. Huffaker.
C. B. Huffaker to P. L. Adkisson, S. D. Beck, G. E. Guyer, R. F. Smith, E. J. Armbrust, R. W. Stark, S. C. Hoyt, L. D. Newsom, P. DeBach, May 3, 1973, files of C. B. Huffaker.
Ibid.
C. B. Huffaker to Subproject Leaders, June 29, 1973, files of C. B. Huffaker.
Carl B. Huffaker to Principal Investigators and Subproject Leaders, July 23, 1973, files of C. B. Huffaker.
L. D. Newsom, Minutes of Steering Committee Meeting, Integrated Pest Management Project, Palmer House Hotel, Chicago, Sept. 11, 1973, files of C. B. Huffaker.
Ray F. Smith, [Notes of] Wednesday, Oct. 3, 1973, Washington, D.C., files of C. B. Huffaker.
Carl B. Huffaker to Warren Muir, Oct. 18, 1973; Carl B. Huffaker, Statement Concerning Tenure of the Integrated Pest Management Project (National Science Foundation Grant GB-34718), Nov. 8, 1973, 2 pp.; both in the files of C. B. Huffaker.
C. B. Huffaker, Notes on a talk with Warren Muir, Dec. 10, 1973, files of C. B. Huffaker.
C. B. Huffaker, IPM Project, Minutes of Executive Committee Meetings, Nov. 25–26, 1973, and subsequent related matters (no date but presumably written in late Nov. or early Dec. 1973), files of C. B. Huffaker.
James T. Callahan to Carl B. Huffaker, Dec. 20, 1973, files of C. B. Huffaker.
Carl B. Huffaker to J. T. Callahan, January 3, 1974, files of C. B. Huffaker.
Carl B. Huffaker to P. L. Adkisson, E. J. Armbrust, Paul DeBach, T. W. Fisher, E. H. Glass, S. C. Hoyt, L. D. Newsom, R. W. Stark, and R. F. Smith, Jan. 4, 1973 [sic, should be 1974], files of C. B. Huffaker.
P. L. Adkisson to C. B. Huffaker, Apr. 29, 1974, files of C. B. Huffaker.
H. Guyford Stever to Jarvis E. Miller, Jan. 4, 1974; P. L. Adkisson to Carl Huffaker and Ray Smith, Jan. 14, 1974; both in files of C. B. Huffaker.
Jerry F. Franklin to Carl B. Huffaker, Apr. 15, 1974, files of C. B. Huffaker.
Carl B. Huffaker and Ray F. Smith, “Some Scientific and Ecological Advances of the IBP Pest Management Project,” memo, Feb. 22, 1974, 7 pp., files of C. B. Huffaker.
Carl B. Huffaker to All Participants in IPM Program, Mar. 1, 1974, files of C. B. Huffaker.
Carl B. Huffaker to James T. Callahan, Mar. 12, 1974, files of C. B. Huffaker.
Carl B. Huffaker and Ray F. Smith to Eloise Clark, Mar. 11, 1974, files of C. B. Huffaker.
Jerry F. Franklin to Carl B. Huffaker, Apr. 15, 1974, files of C. B. Huffaker.
C. B. Huffaker and Ray F. Smith, The Principles, Strategies and Tactics of Pest Population Regulation and Control in Major Crop Ecosystems, Progress Report and Renewal Proposal, Vol. 1, Integrated Summaries, Dec, 1972, mimeo, pp. 5–13, 28–32.
P. L. Adkisson to Robert W. Long, Oct. 11, 1973; Carl B. Huffaker to Robert C. Riley, Jan. 14, 1974; both in files of C. B. Huffaker.
Robert W. Long to Eloise E. Clark, June 17, 1975, files of C. B. Huffaker. Long, assistant secretary of the USDA, had agreed to contribute $267,000 of USDA funds to the Huffaker Project in May, 1974. His letter to Clark listed the projects they supported and said their commitment had been fulfilled.
C. B. Huffaker to Principal Investigators, IBP Project, Apr. 19, 1972, files of C. B. Huffaker.
The USDA’s suggestion was summarized by Huffaker in a memorandum to the steering committee, IBP/NSF Proposals, Oct. 14, 1971, files of C. B. Huffaker. Particularly strong negative reactions to the USDA’s suggestion came in letters to Huffaker from Robert L. Rabb (N.C. State Univ., Oct. 21, 1971), T. W. Fisher (Univ. of Calif., Riverside, Nov. 9, 1971), H. T. Reynolds (Univ. of Calif., Riverside, Oct. 22, 1971), and Ray F. Smith (Univ. of Calif., Berkeley, Oct. 25, 1971), all in the files of C. B. Huffaker.
C. B. Huffaker and Ray F. Smith, Integrated Pest Management, The Principles, Strategies and Tactics of Pest Population Regulation and Control in Major Crop Ecosystems, Progress Report and Renewal Proposal, Vol. 1, Integrated Summaries,” Nov., 1973, mimeo, pp. 25–26.
C. B. Huffaker, IPM Project, Minutes of Executive Committee meetings, Nov. 25–26, 1973, and subsequent related matters (no date but presumably prepared in late Nov. or early Dec, 1973); F. G. Maxwell to Carl B. Huffaker, Dec 11, 1973; both in the files of C. B. Huffaker.
J. B. Kendrick to Chairman Swindale, Regional Director Browning, Regional Director Fortmann, Regional Director Halpin, Assistant Secretary Long, Aug. 13, 1974; Ray F. Smith, [Notes], Aug. 2, 1974; both in the files of C. B. Huffaker.
Carl B. Huffaker to A. G. Manza, Mar. 12, 1974; J. B. Kendrick to C. B. Huffaker, Aug. 10, 1974; both in the files of C. B. Huffaker.
Carl B. Huffaker to Principal Investigators, Executive Committee, Steering Committee of the IPM Project, Oct. 29, 1974, files of C. B. Huffaker; C. B. Huffaker, personal communication, 1979.
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Perkins, J.H. (1982). Traumas. In: Insects, Experts, and the Insecticide Crisis. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-3998-4_5
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