Hey BUGGY PEOPLE!!!
Today I want to talk about presentations.
So far we have had the opportunity to present to 3 clubs on campus, ECO, Save the Bees, and The Wildlife Association, as well as one freshmen level course AG 100.
These presentations include a brief precursor survey for participants to gage current thoughts and feelings on entomophagy and assessing backgrounds of participants. Following this we presented our slide show about entomophagy, its benefits, the state of the future of agriculture, and our current process of raising mealworms. After we concluded the participants took a post survey to say if their ideas or feelings had changed any or not towards introducing insects into an everyday diet.
The same survey was sent out school wide to Truman State University students and staff. We currently have over 100 participants.
The results and further updates will be coming to the blog at a later date!!!
As for our little mealy friends we've had to make some housing changes and adjustments.
Mealworms should ideally have housing that is ~80 degrees F and 70% humid to live their best mealyworm life. In order to achieve this we have added moist paper towels sprayed with DI water (distilled) as well as spraying the sides of their tub. This, as well as being placed and a warm greenhouse environment has allowed us to get the humidity levels to a desired percentage.
It has also come time to pick out pupae from the mealworms.
Now, the pupae are the final stage of growth before becoming the full grown adult Darkling Beetle.
In comparison to mealworms they are stouter and milky white . They also do not eat or defecate during this stage. Their soul purpose, growth.
We currently have 42 pupae and 10 beetles.
We are now waiting for the ideal time and population to begin harvesting mealworms to be turned into flour and later.....COOKIES!!!!
Stayed tuned for more updates and as always,
STAY BUGGY🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛
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