I have been drawing up an on-farm system that automates production of easily scalable parasitoid hosts such as waxworms, rice moths and mealworms, for rearing of beneficial parasitoids.
Waxworms etc are not the natural hosts for many parasitoids, but 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 automated rearing system.
A decentralised on-farm system to produce biocontrols may have a number of benefits:
Waxworms etc are not the natural hosts for many parasitoids, but 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 automated rearing system.
A decentralised on-farm system to produce biocontrols may have a number of benefits:
- Would reduce the cost.
- Would allow species to be produced which are not currently available (companies cannot produce at a reasonable cost for farming).
- Would provide farms with another income source.
- At times when parasitoids aren’t useful, the production process could be managed to produce an insect protein.