In this section:
Biological Controls
Integrate biological controls into you pest management strategy
You can make beneficial insects or natural enemies part of your pest control program.
- Learn about wild and commercially available beneficial insects that will help to control your pests: There are many naturally occurring beneficial insects that may not be noticed unless looked for. Constant spraying keeps them in low numbers and lack of summer habitat also limits their numbers. You can also add commercially available beneficial insects to your crop for pests like whitefly, mites, aphids and thrips. Lacewings eat many different pests and become abundant in spring
- Improve your monitoring program to include beneficial insect counts: Many pests can be controlled by beneficial insects before they reach economic damage levels. A good monitoring program can tell you if they are doing the job well enough for you or you need to spray. Aphids can be easily controlled by parasitic wasps.
- Modify your use of chemicals to protect beneficial insects: Often there are alternative pesticides for killing key pests like DBM, mites, thrips or whitefly, that do little harm to beneficial insects. They may cost more, but the expense may be worth it if they are needed less frequently because beneficial insects can stay on the job.
- Look at other ways to encourage beneficial insects like this red mite predator that eats thrips to stay on your farm, e.g. by planting suitable host vegetation.
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For more information on biological control see the Australasian Biological Control web site
This site has a lot of information including links to 10 commercial suppliers of beneficial insects around Australia. They tend to specialise in the species of beneficial organisms they supply.
A list of beneficial insects available for purchase and the suppliers is on this web page as are the phone contacts for the following individual businesses:
- Beneficial Bug Co. Richmond NSW
- Bio-Protection Pty Ltd Kilmore Vic
- Biological Services Loxton SA
- BioResources Pty Ltd Samford Qld
- BioWorks Pty Ltd Nambucca Heads NSW
- Bugs for Bugs Mundubbera Qld
- EcoGrow Australia Bondi Junction NSW
- Horticultural Crop Monitoring Caloundra Qld
- IPM Technologies Hurstbridge Vic
- Manchil IPM Services Wanneroo WA
A very good overseas site is Koppert Biological Systems
This site has an interactive decision making tool to help decide how risky a particular insect or disease treatment chemical is likely to be for beneficial insects in your crop.
