Yes again some bugs.
This time not all from among the strawberries. My dad has sent me a nice one and i couldn’t let it go. Just the beauty of this dragonfly. Unbelievable what a creation.
Predators predating Predators
This week i had an interesting subject related to predators: predators eating predators. It makes pest control with predators a level harder.
One grower had quite some aphids, but with the Aphidoletes (mainly, but also some Aphidius) they could controle the aphids last weeks quite well.
Spidermites became a little problem because they had changed their strategy to fewer introduction of predatory mites. So the didn’t establish quite well.
As a correction of the they introduced quite a huge number of Limonica. Untill that introduction, Aphidoletes eggs where found everywhere, after introduction of Limonica no eggs of Aphidoletes, and an increasing population of Aphids…
All this makes brings the use of predators to the next level. This is in line with a research from Wageningen University (WUR) which shows the complex relations between different predators and different pests. https://edepot.wur.nl/121105 and in Dutch: https://edepot.wur.nl/166164