Balsam Fir Needles Can Kill Ticks That Cause Lyme Disease Dalhousie Researcher Finds

Adamo, a professor in the psychology and neuroscience department at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said she noticed that ticks often did not survive the winter on her South Shore property that has dense stands of balsam fir. Adamo said she had a “realistic hunch” that she should study the effects of St. John’s wort on Ixodes scapularis, the black-legged tick that carries Lyme disease. First discovered in Lyme, Conn., in the 1970s, Lyme disease is now a common tick-borne illness that can cause fever, joint pain, a rash and other long-term effects. The results of a three-year study on how balsam fir needles could help control tick populations were published July 29 in Scientific Reports. Adamo spoke to CBC Radio’s Mainstreet NS’s Emma Smith about what she discovered. This is a condensed version of their conversation that has been edited for clarity and length. Mainstreet NS10:03N.S. Researchers are investigating a promising natural way to kill the ticks that cause Lyme disease Researchers at Dalhousie University discovered that balsam fir needles can kill black-legged ticks during the winter, preventing them from surviving until spring. Mainstreet’s Emma Smith talks to Shelley Adamo about the study. What did you do to determine that these spruce needles could kill black-legged ticks? We tested them by collecting ticks and then putting them in incubators and giving them a winter experience. We put them in tubes and then we put the balm with them and they died. Then we tried it outdoors. So we worked with people at the Harrison Lewis Center who were very nice to us. They are located in the Port Joli area between Liverpool and Shelburne, a real hotspot for Lyme. We collected the ticks locally to at least not add any ticks and put them in their own little tubes so they couldn’t get out. But it was mesh to keep snow and rain out. We put them in tubes of balsam and took them out in December and collected them in March and looked to see who lived and who died. Some ticks took a small layer of oak and maple leaves, which they like. And some of them got a layer of balsam fir. Those who lived with the fir needles died. Pretty much all of them. This could be a natural product way to try to reduce the load on those ticks that potentially carry Lyme. Shelley Adamo is a professor in the psychology and neuroscience department at Dalhousie University (Shelley Adamo) When you collected those tubes in the spring, the ones with the maple and oak leaves, were those ticks still alive? Not everyone lives. But surprisingly for ticks that evolved much further south, they can actually survive Nova Scotia winters quite well. We vary quite a bit from year to year, but our survival in maple and oak was sometimes 60 percent, sometimes 80 percent, while survival in balsam fir was basically zero. How large was your tick sample size? How many ticks were in those little tubes? We did this in three winters. You want to make sure this is reliable and repeatable, right? We want to make sure it’s rigorous. Over three years we had hundreds of ticks. We are quite confident about our results, especially since they were so impressive. Literally, ticks die. Can you tell me why you wanted to do these experiments at low temperatures? I found there was something about the cold weather and balsam fir together that really brought out the tick killing abilities of these balsam fir needles. That was one reason. The other reason is that I think winter is a neglected season for tick control. Most of our insects and ticks tend to overwinter in leaf litter or just below the ground where it is a bit warmer. Apparently, there is no food for them. So it’s a very stressful time. And that means it’s an opportunity to get rid of them because they’re already under pressure. It may not take long to push them aside. I thought it might be easier to kill them in winter than other seasons. The other reason I wanted to focus on winter is that, you know, we worry about our pollinators and we worry about our beneficial insects. So you want to try to find a control method that will have minimal collateral damage. Using something in the winter at least we know we’re not going to hit any flying pollinators.
Were you able to identify what’s in these balsam fir needles that kills ticks? We found that we could kill these ticks using only the essential oils from these balsam fir needles. Nicoletta Faraone who is at Acadia University is my collaborator on this and her name is on the paper. He was able to extract the essential oils from the needles. We just added it to some cotton balls and poked them with a tick instead of fir needles and sure enough, that killed them too. How long did it take to kill the ticks? The needles themselves will do the job, but it actually takes a few weeks.
Essential oil can do it in a week, several days. Sometimes as short as three or four depends a little on the temperature. Works best at cooler temperatures. Have you found any cons yet or are you expecting to find any cons? I hate to say it, but there is no such thing as a silver bullet. Unfortunately, I suspect we will. But we haven’t found one yet. We have searched. MORE TOP STORIES

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