Early in June, Dr. Kirk Hillier of Acadia University stood before the people who’d been backing research into commercial applications of insect pheromones and reported their collective efforts had already resulted in sales.

Hillier, a graduate of Memorial University of Newfoundland, has spent several years working on an interesting conjecture. He is leading a group of researchers and companies focussed on extracting and synthesizing the pheromones of specific insects that destroy forest and crops and using these products to lure them into traps or to disrupt their mating cycle. In its most important application, the product – which hasn’t been named as yet – can be sprayed on crops or woodlands to confuse the pests so they don’t reproduce. It is a cost-effective, environmentally friendly way of eradicating pests.

About a year ago, working with the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Hillier was joined by several other academic, commercial and government partners to form a consortium aiming to commercialize research. And already, customers are paying for specific products used to monitor outbreaks of two pests -- the brown spruce longhorn beetle and the emerald ash borer.

“It was phenomenal to report that we’ve been getting sales in a product that was really just a year old,” said Hillier, who presented his project at last year's BioPort Atlantic, organized by BioNova.

The key to the venture has been collaboration. Hillier last summer began working closely with Forest Protection Limited, a 60-year-old Fredericton-based company dedicated to state-of-the-art woodland preservation strategies. The company is active in research and development in the area, and each year collects about $1.5 million in funding from different sources that it applies to forest projection projects with various partners.

Through FPL’s affiliate Sylvar Technologies, the partners began to market two ``lures’’, which are largely used for monitoring the outbreaks of pests in specific locations. Users place the lures, dosed with the pheromones in traps, which are distributed throughout the area under consideration, and target insects are attracted to and trapped by the lure. If it traps a lot of insects, you know you’ve got a problem.

While the lures are being bought by forest managers across the continent, another commercial potential for the product will come through the mating disruption product, which needs regulatory approval.

David Davies, Managing Director of FPL, said the Pest Management Regulatory Agency would have to approve the use of the mating disruption product, and be satisfied that it is effective and that it will not harm the environment. He said the registration application for one product may be filed late this fall or early in the winter and, if successful, the product could be on the market by 2014. 

As well as FPL and Acadia University, the partners on the project include University of New Brunswick and the Nova Scotia Agricultural College, the federal government’s Natural Resources Canada - Canadian Forest Service and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and another private partner, Agrifor Biotechnical Services of Fredericton.

The project has raised a total of $6.9 million in funding, including $2.7 million from the Atlantic Canada Opportunity Agency’s Atlantic Innovation Fund. 

Hillier’s team is continuing the research into pheromones of many more pests. It is tricky, because they must assess which pests are on course to produce truly harmful outbreaks in the future, and then assess whether their biological makeup would allow the development of this sort of product.

“Everyone is trying to stay ahead of the problem of infestations,” he said. “With this amount of money we have, I feel we have a responsibility to get the best results possible.”