(gentle whimsical music) - [Narrator] Wherever there are people, there are usually critters living nearby, taking advantage of the free buffet.

And we've traditionally gone to extremes to keep these pests away.

(air whooshing) But what if instead of lethal traps or chemical spray, there was another way?

(magic sparkling) (ascending horn music) One that relied on sound to keep the bugs at bay.

Well, that's "All Science.

No Fiction."

(bright lively music) (bugs scurrying) (bright lively music ending) (items rattling) - Okay, so we've got two units here.

We'll place these two units out.

- [Narrator] Vaughn Walton is an entomologist with a new toy.

- Do you want to see it?

- [People Off Camera] Yeah!

- So, let's connect it.

This is the test run here.

- [Narrator] It's a device designed to communicate with insects through vibrations.

(Pied Piper buzzing) - You can feel it with your hand.

That's the signal.

- [Narrator] If the conversation goes well, the device nicknamed the Pied Piper could eventually save one of the Pacific Northwest's most important crops from a sneaky little bug called a treehopper, and the potentially devastating disease it spreads in vineyards.

(footsteps crunching gently) - [Vaughn Walton] With Pied Piper, we're trying to find an alternative that is clean, that is environmentally safe, to try and get rid of these bugs without using any toxic pesticides.

- [Narrator] The Pied Piper works by taking advantage of how some insects communicate, through vibrations.

(Pied Piper buzzing) (buzzing ascending) - It's all about saving energy.

The females must use as little energy as they can so that they can produce as many eggs and many offspring as they can.

- [Narrator] Saving energy means being as efficient as possible in finding a mate.

The treehoppers do this by playing an elaborate game of "Telephone."

(buzzing ascending) They vibrate their abdomens, and the sound travels through whatever they happen to be standing on.

- [Vaughn Walton] The mates will find that signal, they will zone in on them, and they will be able to mate.

- [Narrator] The Pied Piper robot does something very similar.

(buzzing ascending) It plays the treehopper's call- (buzzing ascending) To lure the insects in.

Walton is testing the device over the summer at Mark Huff's vineyard, in Northwest Oregon.

- This one right here.

- [Vaughn Walton] Why this one?

- It's doin' well.

(Mark and Vaughan laughing) Therefore, it might attract the insects.

- [Narrator] For Huff, dealing with pest problems is constant work.

(tie tightening) - From the moment that the grapes unfurl from their buds, you are thinking about it all the time.

And if you're in the organic business, like we are here, you have a very limited amount of tools in the tool chest.

- [Narrator] Walton attaches the device's microphone and speaker to the grapevine.

- [Mark Huff] We got the high-tech rubber band.

- (laughing) There you go.

- [Narrator] The Pied Piper will listen for treehoppers, and when it hears one- - The computer will send a mating signal through this wire back onto the stem.

- [Narrator] When the treehopper feels the signal, it'll come running.

Luring treehoppers out into the open is a bigger deal than it may seem.

They're experts at staying hidden, and annoying the scientists looking for them.

- [Vaughn Walton] As you get closer to them, they'll be sitting on one side of the stem, and they'll just move around to the back of it and you just won't see them.

- [Narrator] The treehoppers themselves only do minor damage to grapevines, but they're carriers of a much more sinister plant virus called red blotch.

- [Vaughn Walton] With red blotch, we're seeing reduction in photosynthesis in the plant itself.

What that translates towards in wine making is that you have less of these volatiles that we as humans love in wines.

The perception is that the quality of those wines are not as good.

(person spitting wine) - [Narrator] The Pied Piper has already shown it can lure tree hoppers in.

But, does it then kill them?

No.

The hope is to use the device's communication with the treehoppers to keep them from making babies.

It's a technique called "mating disruption."

- [Small Voice] Oh no!

- Mating disruption is kind of like birth control.

- [Narrator] The idea is to confuse and distract, keep the bugs from finding each other.

- You have an adult female that most likely is able to mate and should lay eggs within three or four days.

If you can delay that, you can cut the capacity of this insect being able to reproduce sometimes in half, sometimes 90%.

- [Narrator] It could be a revolutionary solution for organic vineyards.

Yet, treehoppers aren't the only buggy pests farmers are dealing with, and they're also not the only insects that communicate through vibration.

(graceful string music) - That worked okay.

There is a bunch of low frequency stuff still.

- [Narrator] It's been Oregon State undergrad, Vincent Vaughn-Uding's job to train the Pied Piper to recognize treehopper calls.

Now, he's expanding its repertoire.

- We are working on getting the devices to work for brown marmorated stink bugs, which are another pretty major agricultural pest.

- [Narrator] The stink bugs are recent invaders in the Pacific Northwest, and they're starting to cause damage to hazelnut crops.

- In general, bugs are annoying.

They're very finicky.

- [Narrator] But to speak to stink bugs, Pied Piper has to know the language, and that starts with recording their communication- (Pied Piper buzzing) With a vibration sensing laser.

- Vibrometer, it can measure with very high accuracy just vibrations in a thing you point it at.

I'm gonna try to get a stem.

We can get recordings that the traps can play back later in order to lure the insects towards them, and it's also how we can figure out how we need to tune our detection algorithm, like what dominant frequencies and harmonics we need to look at.

- [Narrator] Once the insects are on the test plant, the recording and waiting begins.

- [Vincent Vaughn-Uding] They usually take a little while to like get acclimated before they start doing stuff.

- [Narrator] Yet almost immediately, the male and female stink bugs strike up a conversation.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think we already got a chirp.

If you look in here, you see these little streaks.

The main thing that we were looking for is just some signal that had very sharp, well-defined frequencies in it.

It's kind of like the difference between white noise and a human voice.

- [Narrator] The frequencies of the stinkbug's call fall within human hearing range, and all it takes is a little processing and encouragement from Walton- - You got a signal?

- Oh yeah, we were getting- - Are you serious?

- [Narrator] For the glorious mating call of the brown marmorated stink bug to ring out.

- Play it, can you play it?

- Yeah, there's a lot of noise.

It- - That's okay, don't apologize, just play it.

(stink bugs buzzing) Ah, I can hear it.

- Yeah- - You can hear it.

- So yeah, it's in there.

(graceful string music returns) (graceful string music continues) (stink bugs buzzing musically) (graceful string music continues) (stink bugs buzzing musically) (graceful string music continues) (stink bugs buzzing musically) - [Narrator] If the Pied Piper can stop treehoppers and other insects, it will achieve something pesticides are incapable of.

(stink bugs buzzing musically) - I think the key thing here is that it only affects the target insect.

(scissors snipping) It's cleaner for everyone that lives here, it's better for our salmon and our rivers.

You can't see these bugs, you can't hear them, but now we have a method of detecting them, which we never were able to do in the past.

- [Narrator] And the more songs the Pied Piper learns to play, the more pests it can mesmerize and lead astray.

(graceful string music continues) (bright uplifting music) - It's such a beautiful day in the Willamette Valley.

Ah!

- [Narrator] "All Science.

No Fiction."

Wouldn't be possible without the support and good vibrations we get from OPB members.

Thanks.

And don't miss out on any of OPB's science, history, outdoors, and arts programs, by subscribing to "OPB Insider," at opb.org/allscience.

(rhythmic string music) (rhythmic string music ending) (person spitting wine) (Person Behind Camera laughing) - [Jes Burns] Alright, we got it.