AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
One of Colorado's most beloved crops is in trouble again. Moth larvae are infesting Olathe sweet corn, grown in a small pocket on the state's Western slope. Farmers are trying new methods to fight back. One way is to deploy moths with a sexually transmitted disease that sterilizes future generations. Yep, you heard that right. Colorado Public Radio's Stina Sieg explains.
STINA SIEG, BYLINE: In a bright green field just outside Olathe, Colo., about a dozen people are harvesting corn by hand.
(SOUNDBITE OF CORN SHUCKING)
SIEG: They're packaging the corn, prized by consumers and cooks for its sugary, sweet flavor, and sending it out on trucks...
(SOUNDBITE OF TRUCK DRIVING)
SIEG: ...To become cow feed. Farmer John Harold, who popularized this corn decades ago, says this field is too damaged to sell in stores.
JOHN HAROLD: We've already lost probably 25% of the crop, maybe 30% of the crop.
SIEG: To birds, beetles, even raccoons.
J HAROLD: I don't know if there's a battalion of them or what, but I can see ears of corn all over the ground that they ate last night or this morning.
SIEG: And Harold's company, Tuxedo Corn, still hasn't licked its biggest problem from last year - moths. They lay eggs that become tiny worms, making the corn no less delicious but too ugly to sell. So Harold is trying a method that's still in testing, releasing moths infected with a sexually transmitted disease...
J HAROLD: It's the opposite of Viagra.
SIEG: ...Sterilizing the moths. Melissa Schreiner, an entomologist with Colorado State University Extension, says, while the product called Insterus is not widely used yet, it could be promising.
MELISSA SCHREINER: By launching a product that would cause moths to become sterile, then they couldn't mate females. Progeny wouldn't grow up.
SIEG: Schreiner says, it could be a big deal for farmers around the world all dealing with the same itty-bitty foe.
SCHREINER: I think what keeps us all going is, you know, for the first time in history, we are seeing folks working together, and, like, these individuals are coming together to try to provide these answers.
SIEG: While some farmers are using drones to spray at night, David Harold, the son of Tuxedo Corn founder John Harold, says they do it in a targeted way, hopefully killing the moths but not the bugs that prey on them.
DAVID HAROLD: Ladybugs, spiders, ants.
SIEG: Still, in this field, a lot of corn is missing kernels.
D HAROLD: Could have been a worm there.
SIEG: Harold, a corn truck idling behind him, says his family wants to keep providing the country with Olathe sweet corn, just as it has for about 40 years, but...
D HAROLD: With climate change, with pests, with, you know, all the things we're facing, it's getting harder and harder to do that. And the prices are going up, and it's getting tough to survive.
SIEG: Even so, he and his dad, John Harold, aren't giving up. The veteran farmer says, while this field is heavily damaged, he's optimistic others will be better thanks to their new methods.
J HAROLD: We may be able to turn the corner. If we don't, I guess we'll have a head-on crash.
SIEG: Harvest is still slow, but last Sunday, he was able to send out his first big shipment to grocery stores so his corn can be enjoyed by people instead of cows. For NPR News, I'm Stina Sieg in Olathe, Colo. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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