I'm drawing up an on-farm system that facilitates a continuous production of parasitoids for use in IPM using artificial hosts such as wax worms and rice moths.
Waxworms etc are not the natural hosts for many parasitoids, and although they may not give the parasitoid yields that companies such as Koppert might look for, they can be reared on grains as opposed to plants, allowing for a scalable parasitoid rearing system.
For a user, the system would:
Waxworms etc are not the natural hosts for many parasitoids, and although they may not give the parasitoid yields that companies such as Koppert might look for, they can be reared on grains as opposed to plants, allowing for a scalable parasitoid rearing system.
For a user, the system would:
- Create a source of parasitoids that could be used at any time, if continuously released, it would guarantee parasitoids are active at all times pest populations could emerge.
- Create sources of parasitoids currently commercially unavailable.
- Improve the quality and freshness of parasitoids, as they would be immediately available and would not have
- Reduce the cost of purchasing parasitoids.
- Provide a new income stream through selling reared parasitoids.