horticulturalist

horticulturalist

南アフリカ―ステレンボスのブドウ農園では, 敷地に大量のカモを解放しています。カモが畑の害虫をエサにするという点が, 評価されているようです。農薬を使わずに害虫を駆除できる反面, 費用の工面が今後の課題となっています。

S. Africa vineyard ditches pesticide for ‘quack squad’

Reuters
STELLENBOSCH, South Africa (Reuters) — At 9:45 a.m. each day, more than 1,000 Indian Runner ducks are released for the first of two sorties at South Africa’s Vergenoegd vineyard in Stellenbosch.

Their mission: seek and eat thousands of tiny white dune snails feasting on budding vines.

“Before we had the ducks we had to put down snail bait, a pesticide. But, for the past nine years I have been here we’ve used very little snail bait, almost nothing, because the ducks eat all the snails and other insects,” vintner and horticulturalist, Marlize Jacobs, told Reuters.

Sustainability

Used for centuries in Asia to control pests, the ducks stand upright like penguins and are slim enough to fit between rows of vines. And they do not waddle, they run.

以下省略

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002983904

本日気になった表現は “horticulturalist” です。

『新英和大辞典』(第五版, 研究社)には, 「園芸家」とありました。Oxford Leaner’s Dictionaries.com には “a person who is involved in the study or practice of growing flowers, fruit and vegetables, usually as a job” と定義されていました。

ちなみに “horticulturalist” と並んで記されている “vintner” は, “vineyard” の従事者「ワイン醸造業者」を意味し, こちらも “horticulturalist” であることがわかりました。(Cayu)