26 Lancaster Farming. Saturday. August 15.1970
Wasps
Alfalfa wievils declined about
00 per cent dining a thiee-year
am vi v of selected aieas in which
US Depailmenl of Agncultuie
cn'omologists icleascd wasps to
conti ol the pest a, thoioby saving
faimeis in these areas moic than
SOOO.OOO. in 1960.
These icsiilis aic as good as
faimeis obtain with conventional
insecticides, and pose no food
or envnonmental hazaids involv
ing tesiducs
Results with the wasps, which
aie hamilcss to man. are the
most successful of any biological
conliol expci imenls conducted
bv 1/SDA‘s Agiicultural Re
scaich Seivice
Di William H Day, an ARS
entomologist stationed at Mooies
town NJ. calculated that the
wasps saved faimeis about $5
per acie—foi insecticides, labor,
and equipment that would have
been needed to conti ol alfalfa
weevils Di Day and ARS ento
mologist Roger W Fuestei sur
veyed thiee test aieas in New
Jersey and Pennsylvania, com
prising 155,000 acies of alfalfa
Statistical data that they ob
tained m the last three yeais
substantiated the effectiveness of
the wasps in unspiayed fields in
which they had become estab
lished. In the fiist yeai. Dr. Day
and Fuester captuied about 40
weevil laivae per sweep of their
nets, in field suiveys Of these,
only nine per cent were para
sitized This and subsequent sui
veys weie made at peak infesta
tion peuods of the year.
In the second and thud years,
the wasps made significant in
loads on the weevils Conse
quently, in the most lecent sur
vey, the entomologists captuied
only about five laivae pel sweep
And, of these, 39 pei cent were
paiasitized
Othei natural envuonmental
factors also helped hold down in
festations, but the wasps lepie
sented the last stiaw that broke
the weevils’ thieat to alfalfa
ci ops m the test areas
Previous studies indicated that
the pests do not cause sufficient
damage to justify the expense of
spiaying if less than 15 larvae
aie captuied per sweep with a
net
The paiasitic wasps have be
come established in about a
dozen Eastern States, and experi
mental release of the paiasites
aie being made in othei States
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