Pheron, Igor’s latest naming work.

Pheron is the key compound in all of Provivi’s products, each of which replicate the pheromones of specific, crop damaging insects and disrupts their ability to find a mate and reproduce, while having no effect on benign insects. Jane Goodall explains:

Detection of sexual pheromones from their own species prompts the male insects to fly upwind crisscrossing the pheromone trail left by the females until he finds his mate. Imagine trying to find your friend in a dark room, and the only signal is a whisper. Now imagine the same situation but add loud music to the room. Much like your friend’s sound would be drowned out by the music, mating disruption works by drowning out the pheromone “call” of an insect. The principle behind mating disruption is saturating the environment with pheromones similar to those released by female insects. The male insects are unable to find the females, even if females are in the field. Her weaker pheromone signal cannot be detected in the pervasive cloud generated by the mating disruption pheromone. As a result, reproduction is prevented, and less offspring will be produced in the next generation. This way of controlling the insect population and decreasing the size of future generations is the concept behind mating disruption.

We also named Provivi products Pherogen, Pherium & Pherotop.