TO SAVE their crops from rampaging bacteria, farmers in the American
Southwest have turned to the microbes’ natural enemies—viruses known as
bacteriophages.
Phages have long been used to battle bacteria that cause human disease,
particularly in Russia. In the agricultural world, however, farmers tried and
abandoned phages during the 1940s, largely because disease-causing bacteria
became resistant to them.
But Lee Jackson, president of AgriPhi in Logan, Utah, believes he has now
found a way round this. “When you start treating crops with one curative you get
resistant mutants,” he says. “What makes my process different is that I have…
