Predatory dirt ball are used to help do a miscellanea of greenhouse pests . Keeping these arthropods ’ rapacious appetite in check can be difficult , and their long - term natural selection is important to successful pest direction . New UF / IFAS research render management strategy to aid biological control agent population flourish .
“ There is a growing concern over the use of chemical pesticides for pestilence direction , which has led to an increased involvement in using predatory and leechlike dirt ball to manage glasshouse gadfly , ” say Erich Schoeller , UF / IFAS postdoctoral researcher .
“ regrettably , we miss bang-up alternatives to chemical control choice for many greenhouse plague . It is often a game of trial and error to figure out the good predatory animal to deal with a particular pest . Something that works nifty for one gadfly might not work for another . ”
Echinothrips
There are thousands of thripid species that fee on plants . This study investigated ways to manage Echinothrips americanus , also known as lobster plant thrips , a globally important pest of many crop grown in greenhouses .
“ Thrips are a particularly big problem for greenhouses , and poinsettia thrips are a middling large thripid species , ” said Schoeller . “ We were bet for a really big marauder for a really heavy plague . ”
The enquiry squad studied Franklinothrips vespiformis Crawford , which is a generalist vulture with a large appetence .
“ I was surprised by how effective this predator was in just a short sentence , ” said Schoeller . “ We went from high compactness of the pests to almost nothing in just two weeks of having release the predatory thrips . ”
These results were realise in many crops , including kava , poinsettia , and industrial hemp .
Cysts on craw
The predator ’s vivid appetency is great for controlling pests , but once they have eaten all uncommitted prey within the greenhouse , they often conk of starvation . Researchers wanted to know if they could feed the insect a supplemental dieting of brine shrimp eggs , or cysts , to sustain their universe during multiplication of low fair game populations .
Many studies over the age have tested this method by feeding the vulture pollen , other insect nut , and contrived diets , but many of the diets essay are too expensive for large - scurf operations to implement .
seawater peewee eggs are commercially available and often used as fish food . They have been tested globally as a supplemental intellectual nourishment for biological control agents with some consistent overconfident result in the preceding five years . However , scientist had not tested the suitability of a brine half-pint egg dieting on this coinage of predator .
Turns out , thrips do like the testicle . But not just any seawater runt eggs will work . The cysts used are particularly process and sold by a commercial-grade insectary in Israel . Once the pest population had been consumed by the predatory thrip , researcher see them complete additional generations only when the supplemental food source was provided .
F_vespiformis on artemia
“ The exciting thing is that we proved that we could keep these predators in the greenhouse longer by feeding them , ” Schoeller enjoin .
This save money for growers , so they do not have to repeatedly purchase predators . It is more affordable to feed the insects than to progress a new colony . However , growers do not have much access to these predatory animal . The predatory thripid are not commercially bring about yet , but UF / IFAS entomologists at the Mid - Florida Research and Education Center in Apopka are working on way to make them more available .
“ We hope to line up a way to mass rear them , using the same feeder method acting used in this research , ” said Schoeller . “ Now that we cognize how to bung them in an economical way , this is a possibility . ”
Researchers go for to perfect the alimentation process . presently , the diet is spread across the crops inside the greenhouse . This is not only labor intensive , but in humid mood , the front of food on the crop for recollective periods can get it to mold .
Franklinothrips
“ We ’re fine - tuning how we feed these vulture because our current process is not idealistic , ” Schoeller say . “ We intend we have a solution to this problem by creating self-feeder Stations of the Cross within the greenhouse so that supplemental food does not need to be at once apply to the crop , but we ’re still puzzle out on that . ”
More good news — in additional research trials , these predatory thrips show potential for controlling other pesterer , including whitefly , spider mites , and chili thripid .
“ bed how to raise these predators is helpful , especially since we see that they have the potential difference for contain other pests beyond our study metal money , ” allege Schoeller . “ This is really exciting for the future tense . ”
For more entropy : UF / IFASwww.ifas.ufl.edu
