Davik is harnessing years of expertise and innovation to provide dynamic solutions for cannabis crops.
Davik was founded in 1982 in Kibbutz Sde Boker in Israel. Kibbutz Sde Boker is known as the home of Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, who strongly believed in the innovative spirit of the youth who settled in the area and had a vision of making the desert area bloom. It is with this vision in mind that Davik was founded with the aim of becoming a world leading adhesive solution provider.
Globally Davik was one of the first companies to develop the well known Presto Print (1995) for self-adhesive tapes printed with company logos. Davik was also one of the first to develop the adhesive formula for carry handle tapes, which the company still manufactures. New and novel innovative solutions are under development by the experts in our research and development (R&D) department to ensure that our products are based on state of the art in adhesive technologies.
Market trends and needs
Davik is very much attuned to the changing market trends, including sustainability, reducing plastic waste, environmental issues, avoiding inappropriate and unnecessary chemical usage, and more. All this allows Davik to invent new adhesive solutions to serve the global population.
Davik’s in-house R&D team includes chemists, material and mechanical engineers and production specialists who are constantly looking for new and novel ways to improve our methodologies and product offering in order to retain our leadership position in the world of adhesives.
After carrying out an intensive market survey Davik has identified the agricultural indoor and greenhouse sector needs as being highly compatible with its expertise in tailor made adhesive solutions.
Innovating agriculture
CATCHY, Davik’s latest product, is the first product in a new range of adhesive solutions for farmers and indoor growers around the world. Sticky glue traps have been used by farmers and pest scouts for many years in order to both detect agricultural insect pest presence and to monitor the pest population dynamics of these pests both in the field and greenhouse.
Davik has developed a unique, long lasting, dry adhesive which captures flying insect pests. This adhesive is applied to various coloured roller sheets which are hung in indoor farming situations – protected cultivation greenhouses, insect proof net houses, indoor vertical leafy green growing structures, indoor cannabis growing operations, and more. The key condition is that external insect pest populations cannot directly access the crops growing inside.
The unique adhesive Davik has developed has been tested in the harsh environment of the Judean Desert – cold night temperatures, hot summer days and very dusty conditions. Indoors and in greenhouses it retains its adhesiveness for up to six months.
Davik’s products
Currently we have two products to offer both work on the same principle of ‘lure and kill’ with the main visual attractant based on specific colours:
1) Double sided adhesive yellow roller sheets of varying widths which attract a wide variety of flying insect pests – tobacco white fly, plant aphids, thrips, vegetable leaf miners, fungus gnats and leaf hoppers; and
2) Double sided adhesive blue roller sheets of varying width which are especially attractive to thrips species – onion thrips and western flower thrips.
Of course, the sticky roller sheets will also trap any flying insect that flies onto it inadvertently like house flies, fungus gnats, and moths.
The sticky roller sheets are especially designed for easy and simple setting up and in various growing conditions. The sheets come with the adhesive already applied on both sides with no need for manual brushing of sticky adhesives in the greenhouse. The sheets unroll easily and are covered on one side by a thin transparent plastic layer which is easily removed and remain perpendicular without sagging after being hung up.
Use of Davik’s sticky roller sheets is especially effective if the growing structure is indoors or in greenhouse conditions is completely separated from outside using insect proof nets on all greenhouse walls and double entrances with insect proof netting on both doors. It is advisable to also hang the sticky roller sheets in the entrance area to prevent entry of individual flying pests into the actual greenhouse.
In addition to mass trapping of the flying stages of the relevant insect pests the sticky roller sheets attract they also help to detect and monitor local insect pest populations and allow for early detection of initial pest infestations. The early detection of the initial infestation means that if required the farmer can spray the only immediate area in the greenhouse where the infestation was first detected rather than spraying the whole greenhouse.
Using the sticky roller sheets also reduces insecticide residues on crop due to less spraying.
The roller sheets are compatible with integrated pest management (IPM) protocols and do not attract the local natural parasitoid and predator populations thus work in parallel, complementing the activity of the natural enemy populations in the protected, closed cultivation conditions.
Davik’s yellow roller sheets are particularly suited for use in indoor closed leafy greens and especially for cannabis production operations. In such operations especially for hydroponically grown crops spraying insecticides is not recommended and relying on ‘lure and kill’ yellow roller sheets should provide season long control of most flying stages of potential insect pests.
Optimally the sheets should be hung about 10cm above the plant canopy. For tall growing crops they can be hung above the growing crop and raised as the crop grows. For low growing plants that are located on tables the sheets can be hung above the tables or even below them or both.
In the near future, Davik plans to further launch additional ’lure and kill’ eco-friendly solutions incorporating improved ‘attractiveness’ using lures based on both visual and olfactory cues in order to widen the target spectrum of insect pests and also to improve the ‘catch’ rate of these pests in greenhouses and indoor farming structure.
Marina Arshavsky Rosental
Global Marketing & Sales
DAVIK INDUSTRIES A.C.S Ltd
+972 8 6560100
marina@davik.co.il
www.catchybydavik.com
www.daviktapes.com
This article will appear in the second issue of Medical Cannabis Network which is out in April. Click here to get your free subscription today.
