![]() "When the smell of the seed is everywhere, they'll just go and look for something else instead of being encouraged to dig. Because they're hungry, they can't spend all their time searching for food that's hard to find," Professor Banks said. "We found we could reduce mice damage even during plague conditions simply by making it hard for mice to find their food, by camouflaging the seed odour. This, they say, is because the mice had learned to ignore unrewarding wheat odour by the time the crop is planted. The researchers found that if the wheat plot was also sprayed with the same solution before planting, then seed loss reduced by an even better 74 percent. The team estimates that mice successfully steal 63 percent fewer wheat seeds, compared to untreated controls, if a wheat crop is sprayed with diluted wheat germ oil during and after sowing. ![]() The research, published in Nature Sustainability, is led by PhD student Finn Parker, with co-authors Professor Peter Banks, Dr Catherine Price and Jenna Bytheway, from the Sydney Institute of Agriculture and School of Life and Environmental Sciences. ![]() In 2021, NSW Farmers said the mice plague at the time could cause $1 billion of damage to Australian crops. The technique, developed by scientists at the University of Sydney, could be a game-changer in the management of crop loss to mice plague. ![]()
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