Northwest researchers are teaming up to stop an invasion of stink bugs moving across the region. The bugs, which can smell like dirty gym socks, ruin tree fruit and grape vines. Those crops are vital to Northwest agriculture.
You have to go through three airlocked doors to get to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s stink bug research lab.
The quarantined, closet-sized room has it’s own ventilation system. The stink bug colony of about 400 bugs is kept inside an even smaller room within the lab.
Chemist Lee Ream opens the door.
Ream: “So, here’s our colony.”