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Title: MASS REARING OF ENTOMOPHAGOUS INSECTS AND PREDACEOUS MITES: ARE THE BOTTLENECKS BIOLOGICAL, ENGINEERING, ECONOMIC, OR CULTURAL?

Author
item Cohen, Allen
item Nordlund, Donald
item Smith, Rebecca

Submitted to: Biocontrol News and Information
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/1/1999
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Growing awareness of harmful effects of pesticides has made it necessary to develop alternative means of pest control. One promising approach is augmentative biological control. However, the potential of augmentative biological control has not been fully realized, in part, because of the lack of ability to rear most biological control agents in sufficient numbers at a sufficiently low cost. This paper reviews the status of mass rearing of entomophagous insects and predaceous mites and provides some reasons for our limited progress, and explains how a synthesis of efforts from biologists, engineers, and economists suggest a high potential for successful use of augmentative biological control in the near future.

Technical Abstract: Commercial mass rearing of entomophagous insects on artificial diets has been a goal for five decades, and economical production of biological control agents is desperately sought because of mounting needs for environmentally safe pest management methods. Yet, there is still no commercial artificial diet-based rearing of entomophages. We consider here ethe potentials and pitfalls to commercial production of entomophagous arthropods. We discuss endoparasitoids, ectoparasitoids and predators, with emphasis on predators. We also consider the potentials and problems inherent in generalist versus specialist natural enemies both as targets of rearing efforts and in their potential market. Finally, we present a detailed analysis of what has been shown as liabilities and assests of rearing a predator that has been produced for well-over 150 generations and nearly 15 years on an artificial diet. We discuss the possible reasons why ythis research success has not become a commercial success, and suggest way to speed the development/adoption of artificial diet-based mass rearing systems for biological control.