Three traps installed at WRAL Soccer Park have captured more than 9,000 mosquitoes since mid-July, according to the company running a pilot program designed to control the pests without chemical sprays.
NCFC Youth partnered with Biogents, a German mosquito-control company with a U.S. division, to test whether the traps could make the fields more comfortable for players and families while reducing pesticide use.
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“We’re really just trying to improve the experience for our kids, for our families out here as they’re watching and participating in soccer,” said Jeremiah Off, athletic field superintendent for NCFC Youth.
The pilot comes as mosquitoes in Wake County show growing resistance to pyrethroids, a class of insecticides commonly used by homeowners and pest-control companies.
Two recent NC State University studies found resistance-associated mutations in 39% of the mosquitoes sampled in 2023. The mutations appeared in 84% of the residential blocks researchers studied, up from none when sampling began in 2016 and 2017.
The findings do not mean pyrethroids have stopped working entirely. Researchers have described the trend as an early warning that mosquitoes are evolving to withstand some of the chemicals used to kill them.
The need for mosquito control is also lasting longer. A Climate Central analysis found Raleigh gained 27 additional days with conditions favorable for mosquito activity between 1979 and 2022. Warmer temperatures, along with changes in rainfall and land use, are extending the season when mosquitoes can thrive and potentially spread disease.
Traps mimic people to attract mosquitoes
Instead of spraying insecticides, the Biogents traps use carbon dioxide, airflow and an artificial scent to imitate the signals mosquitoes use to locate people.
“They think it’s a human being looking to feed, and then it gets sucked into the trap,” Biogents President Jon Anderson said.
The traps do not use light, which can attract moths, beetles and other insects. Biogents says its combination of humanlike scent and carbon dioxide is designed to target mosquitoes seeking a blood meal.
The three traps are positioned near the edges of the property, where mosquitoes are more likely to shelter in shade and vegetation before approaching people.
“Mosquitoes, they don’t fly far and they don’t like to be in the open, so they want to hang out in the edges,” Anderson said.
Each trap uses a fan to pull mosquitoes into a collection net. A counter records activity in 15-minute intervals, allowing the company to track catches over time.
Biogents says all of the more than 9,000 mosquitoes caught during the pilot were female. Female mosquitoes bite because they need blood to produce eggs.
The catch total shows how many mosquitoes the traps removed, but it does not, by itself, establish how much the overall mosquito population or number of bites declined.
Anderson said Biogents evaluates its systems by looking for a gradual decline in catches over several months and adjusting the number and placement of traps when needed.
The existing pilot does not cover the entire soccer complex. Anderson estimated that about 10 traps would be needed to create a perimeter around a larger section of the property, though the number would depend on mosquito activity and surrounding habitat.
NCFC Youth reports a promising start
Off said staff members have noticed fewer mosquitoes near the maintenance area where the traps are operating.
“The system is quiet and kind of hidden in the back. Nobody really even notices it’s there,” Off said. “We’ve had a good summer this year with the system in place.”
Mosquito activity naturally fluctuates with heat, rainfall and the time of year, making it difficult to attribute changes solely to the traps without baseline and comparison data.
The pilot began during the summer and has continued into early fall. Biogents sponsored the equipment and installation, allowing NCFC Youth to test the system without paying for it.
The soccer complex hosts camps throughout the summer, training during the week and games and tournaments on weekends. Off said reducing pesticide use was especially important because children spend so much time on the fields.
“Exposure to unnecessary pesticides, and the mosquitoes themselves, we’re trying to reduce that and make this a safe environment for kids to play," Off said.
Potential alternative to repeated spraying
Pyrethroids remain an important tool because they can reduce adult mosquito populations quickly, particularly during an outbreak of mosquito-borne disease. However, repeated use can create selection pressure: Mosquitoes that survive a treatment can reproduce and pass resistance traits to their offspring.
Broad insecticide applications can also affect bees, butterflies and other insects if the chemicals drift or are applied to flowering plants.
NC State researchers recommend using several mosquito-control strategies rather than repeatedly relying on one insecticide. Those measures include removing standing water, treating water that cannot be emptied with a larvicide such as Bti and using traps that target different stages of the mosquito life cycle.
Anderson said the traps are more labor-intensive than spraying because they need electricity, carbon dioxide and replacement scent lures. Home systems start at about $200 per trap, according to the company, with additional costs for lures and carbon dioxide.
Whether NCFC Youth expands the system will depend on what the pilot data show.
“We can see the numbers that come in,” Off said. “We start to see those numbers adding up, and expanding would be something that we would consider.”
