Agricultural pests as well as household pests can grow to be a huge menace, if not controlled. Ross Lifescience's entomological services are designed to mitigate this nuisance. RLS conducts laboratory as well as field trials for evaluating the efficacy of various products to control insect pests.

Household pests such as mosquitoes, cockroaches, bed bugs, housefly and termites are subjected to experiments in our state-of-the-art laboratory. RLS has interconnected room chambers with air exchange facility, peet grady chambers, and sniffing chambers in its facility for studies on flying and crawling insects.

In the lab bred cultures, RLS has three species of mosquito, two deltamethrin resistant strains of mosquito, two species of cockroach, one species of house fly and one species of bedbugs.

Below are the services provided for Entomological studies

1. 1. Bio-efficacy & Persistency- Field studies
2. 2. Bio-efficacy & Persistency- Laboratory studies

Bio-efficacy & Persistency – Field Trials

Crop Care
A herbicide is meant to control its target weed, while an insecticide is expected to target insect pests, and so on for fungicides, rodenticides, etc, while a Bio-stimulant’s purpose is to improve quality and quantity of yield. It is critical to know the concentration and how long each of these is persistent on the crop, and different soil and water types. This is where Persistency studies come in handy. In RLS's collaboration with various partners to design and conduct Efficacy & Persistency trials, it offers guidance based on its scientific and agricultural expertise. The trials vary based on many parameters such as crop, land, season and agro-climatic zones. RLS's range of tests include:

1. 1. Bio-effectiveness
2. 2. Phyto-toxicity
3. 3. Effect on parasites and predators
4. 4. Translocation in plants
5. 5. Metabolism & Persistence in soil, water and plants
6. 6. Effect on physicochemical and biological properties of soil
7. 7. Effects on succeeding crops

Public Health
Humanity is hugely threatened by vector and vector-borne diseases, both, from the management point of view, as well as from an economic perspective. Many global organisations, and country policies have put plans in place to control and mitigate the impact of these diseases. To this effect, many organisations too have developed specific products. An efficacy evaluation of these products calls for multi-location, large scale trials, which RLS is in a position to offer. RLS's services include:

1. 1. Field trials of Liquid vaporizers, mosquito coil, vaporizing mats, ambient emanators and aerosols- WHO guidelines
2. 2. Instrument testing for applications
3. 3. Fogging trial (Thermal fogging & Ultra Low Volume fogging)- in field
4. 4. Granular application for mosquito larvae control in Marshy areas
5. 5. Housefly & Rodents control- bait development and efficacy and implementation

Bio-efficacy & Persistency – Laboratory studies

The effectiveness of a product on its target pest is critical. Efficacy trials designed as per the regulatory guidelines are conducted to demonstrate this. Here is a list of the studies conducted by RLS.

1. 1. Bio-efficacy against flying/ crawling insects as per CIB and WHO guidelines
2. 2. Persistency on different types of surfaces
3. 3. Information on secondary pest outbreaks particularly of ticks and mites (in case residual Pyrethroids are being used)
4. 4. Data on concentration of a.i. in Air - for Aerosols (for Coil, mats, liquid vaporizer etc.)
5. 5. Efficacy and Persistency of insecticide impregnated bed net as per WHO guidelines
6. 6. Efficacy and Potency of Bio larvicides like Bti
7. 7. Long Lasting Insecticidal Net (LLIN) Studies