BioResources FSB Project - BLOG
Season ROUNDUP JUNE 2014
26 June 2014
Latest Harvest Results Coming In
As mentioned in previous blogs we had some serious mass rearing problems in October and had to cut our releases right back. We were however able to keep a few high pressure trial sites going with a regular supply of wasps. And now, harvests results are coming in after the second year of releases, and they look good!
Part of Henri Bader’s macadamias are surrounded by regenerated bush and its always been an FSB hot spot. Last year his damage was down on previous years and this year its even lower with an average of 1.23% NIS damage from FSB over three rounds.
Hotson’s, at Alstonville, also have a high pressure FSB farm. Last year their damage was also down from previous years and is further down this year with 0.9% NIS first round and 0.58% for 2nd round and third round 0%. Hotson’s untreated block had 3.46% FSB damage and 1.73% in second round - this block is about 1km west and had the same sprays as the Anastatus treated area.
Peter Harper, at Bauple, growing fruit inside fruit fly exclusion mesh structures, has a very high bug pressure situation. Three years back he was not picking many trees due to FSB damage. He had much less bug damage last year and even less this season. Peter is a great observer and knows his crop inside and out. He used to be able to find bugs very easily and he’s only seen a few bugs in the last 5 months in spite of the warm weather. See the video interviews.
Cameron Wallace, a mac grower near Bauple borders a creek and previously had high pressure with around 2.5 to 3.8% damage. Last year he was down to 0.6% (see last year) while this year he has next to no damage with 0% from the processors reports.
Summerlands Macadamias border Duck Creek and are under high pressure from bugs. Their avocado crop has very little damage this year and the macs had an average of 1.73% NIS which is lower than previous years.
Bonnie Walker, a minimum chemical grower of avocados, in a high pressure location, decided to stop sprays for bugs 2 years ago - she still does the odd spot spray for Monolepta. Bonnie has been doing monitoring and bin reject assessments. There is a marked difference in damage in the Anastatus release area and non release area.
Send comments and bug observations to:
Richard Llewellyn
richard@bioresources.com.au
Top left: Lace Bug nymph, potentially very damaging in macadamias with a tiny spider nearby. Above, FSB also feed on blue quandong fruits.
We’ve also had some good reports from growers that had been making Anastatus releases up to October 2013 when we had to cut back releases due to our mass rearing issues.
These include Mark Fleming who manages a macadamia farm at Tregeagle NSW. He’s made regular releases of Anastatus and reported a big drop in damage last season but was unable to get wasps from October 2013. Nevertheless he says his damage is still way down on what it used to be and spends a lot less time on sorting.
Similarly, Rick Paine, (see last year LINK) continued to have incredibly low levels of bug damage this year (Pers Comm). Ian Gall has noticed “a definite difference” on his property near Rosebank. Graeme Fleming has been releasing in a conventional block of macs next to Henri Bader (see above) and reports very low levels of bug damage. And his organic block at Knockrow also has lower levels than usual.
I visited Russ Hopper, a mac grower near Bundaberg, a few months ago. The source of his bugs seems to be the house orchard and this year there was very little damage on those trees including the frangipani that usually gets hammered. This carried over into very low damage levels in the crop.
So all this is very encouraging and great to see growers are starting to reap the benefits of their commitment and patience. For some biocontrol agents it may take several seasons to filter through into changes in pest damage. And as we have found the mass rearing has been more challenging than we would have liked. We are sure we can make it more reliable over time.
Thanks again to all those growers and consultants who have supported this work.
Our plans for the next few months
Refine Anastatus the mass rearing and field delivery systems.
Work towards having more Anastatus wasps available next season.
Contact growers in early August to call for orders for the season.
China Visit
Our Chinese collaborators are also going to experiment with holding back some of their moths and sending us “fresh” eggs in August-September. This will be a trial run and if the quality of the eggs is good then we will receive more eggs this way next year.
They have also secured funding to pay for me to visit China in late July. We have many fine points to discuss about mass rearing and field use. Anastatus have been used in China for decades. As well as rearing Anastatus for lychee stink bugs, they are also rearing Trichogramma for a range of crops. So we have a lot to talk about.
Left: Australian Good Bug Producers had their AGM in Ballina this year and followed up with a seminar with growers at Alstonville organised by SoilCare. It was a worthwhile meeting for all...
