RUSSELL JACKSON -
Tuesday 20th July 2004
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A LUXURIOUS lochside resort has taken the war against the Scottish midge to a new level of sophistication and spending in its quest to ensure guests do not suffer as they relax on holiday.
De Vere, which owns the £50 million five-star Carrick golf and leisure resort at Cameron House on Loch Lomond, drafted in a leading insect expert to carry out a study into where the creatures breed, in preparation for an all-out assault on the blood-suckers.
Dr Alison Blackwell, a senior research fellow at Edinburgh University, carried out a £25,000 survey of the 300-acre site, identifying the soggy areas where the midges flourish in their millions.
Now the crucial hotspots have been found, the company is to spend more than £100,000 on machines which electrocute the midges before they become a menace.
The Dragonfly Professional
the machine which is being used, is designed specifically to attract and kill biting insects such as mosquitoes and midges.
Carbon dioxide, octenol and a thermal lure are used to fool female midges, the only ones which bite, into thinking the trap is an animal or human, which they can feast on, before electrocuting them.
Matthew Kaye, the sales and marketing director of MidMos Solutions, which manufactures the Dragonfly
Professional, was delighted to help solve the midge problem.
He said: "Tests have shown if you have traps at the correct distance from each other you can create a barrier around the place you want to protect."
Mr Mitchell said the idea to get rid of the midges was inspired by the company’s chairman.
He said: "Our chairman, Lord Daresbury, has a particular dislike of midges. We were discussing the resort one day and he jokingly asked if we could get rid of the midges."
"It got me thinking and I contacted Dr Blackwell who told us there are ways to get rid of the biting midges, and it has just gone from there."
"It is a substantial investment, as we are looking at between 100 to 150 of the machines in total on the
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