MORE BAD NEWS FOR BUGS
By Sally Solo

(FORTUNE Magazine) – To celebrate Earth Day (April 22), Sukup Manufacturing of Sheffield, Iowa, is trucking its Bug Beater to Washington, D.C., for the EarthTech 90 exhibit on environmentally sound technologies. The $10,000 machine provides an alternative to pesticides. High-velocity fans vacuum pests off a variety of plants, including strawberries and tomatoes. The machine spits out the battered bugs as fertilizer. Sound familiar? Driscoll Strawberry Associates, a California cooperative, developed a similar machine that vacuums lygus bugs from berries, and lettuce growers came up with a version that they can use (FORTUNE, April 24, 1989). Sukup's CEO and founder, Eugene Sukup, 60, says his machine is lighter and more versatile. Besides, says he, ''Vacuuming is an old art, used back in the Twenties and Thirties to get boll weevils out of cotton fields.''