Mass rearing back on track

As mentioned in the previous blog, we had some mass rearing issues back in October. Since then we have been working away at these issues and have made significant headway. We have found a way to store the silkworm eggs in the freezer for up to 12 months without too much loss in egg quality and suitability for the wasps.

Meanwhile, we have recently received fresh shipments of eggs from China and are now back on track to produce good quantities of wasps.

We have fortunately been able to keep some sites going with a consistent supply of wasps over the last few months and we have been watching a handful of these sites closely. The Hotson, Bader and Harper sites have continued to improve on last year’s results.

Henri Bader has low FSB damage this year (1.15% 1st round and 1.01% NIS 2nd round) and Ian Hotson (0.9% NIS first round) while Peter Harper had less bug damage in his fruit crops last year and even less this season - all previously high pressure sites.

So, it’s looking good but as we have mentioned before we need to keep going a bit longer before we can be sure. There are many variations from one season to the next that make it very difficult to compare damage (and yield) from one season to the next.

The weather influences many factors - bug populations in and around the crop are influenced by the availability or not of bug food around the crop: dry periods may bring pests into crops while good food outside crops may keep bugs away from crops. Crop load, spraying practices and other natural enemies all have an influence.

What we are looking for is a downward trend in FSB damage over several seasons - and there may be hiccups along the way - just like the stock market value tends to fluctuate due to short term influences but increases over time.