Re: Biobased Pest Management

Steve Diver (steved@ncatark.uark.edu)
Mon, 26 Jan 1998 16:02:29 +0000

One of the most impressive uses of insect vacumns for bio-based
pest control that I know about is the integration of insect
vacumns to collect beneficial insects from intentionally planted
strips of perennial legumes like alfalfa and clover in vegetable
fields that function as insect refugia, followed by augmentative release
of the biocontrol agents into adjoining fields of vegetable crops.

This was done at NaturFarm in Lompoc, CA by the biocontrol
pioneer Everett Dietrick. His daughter Jan Dietrick presented this
field work at the 1995 Acres USA conference in St. Louis, and it is
briefly summarized in a 39-page report titled "Biological Control of
Insect Pests Using Pest Break Strips: A New Dimension to Integrated
Pest Management." The report was written by Everertt Dietrick, John
Phillips, and Joel Grossman, and is a publication of The NaturFarm
Conversion Project.

At NaturFarm, they rely on the pest break strip--which are
planted at 350 foot intervals between fields of commercial organic
vegetables--as the primary means of insect control. Botanical
pesticides are not used on the farm. Instead, biological control through
farmscaping is the goal.

Selective insect vacumning can take different approaches based on
the circumstance; i.e., (1) to collect beneficials and release them into
vegetable fields to outnumber crops pests, and (2) to collect all the
bugs in pest break strips or field borders...followed by sorting out the
bad bugs to reduce their populations numbers....followed by
re-releasing the beneficials back into the insect strips.

Steve Diver

> Question: Has anyone done anything in furthering devlopment of bug
> vacuuming systems? I know some are used in California berry fields,
> but it seems like there would be a BIG advantage to using them on many
> other crops. Stuff deleted.....
> -Lon Rombough


--
steved@ncatark.uark.edu


To Unsubscribe:  Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with "unsubscribe sanet-mg".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".