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These days, not even a backyard garden is free from danger. The vegetables and flowers over which you've labored so lovingly are prey for aphids, cutworms, mealy bugs, and many others. Using chemical pesticides is so last century. We now know that broad-spectrum conventional pesticides not only kill the bad bugs, they rub out the good ones as well. In fact, more and more insects are showing resistance to heavy-duty chemical pesticides. In a controlled experiment, fruit flies were exposed to DDT. Not only did it not kill them, the fruit flies had developed a way to metabolize the pesticide and use it as food! Unfortunately, we've been finding out more and more that ingesting chemicals on the things that we eat can have a negative effect on us. We are what we eat. No matter how carefully you wash your vegetables that have been treated with chemicals, there is no guarantee that they don't still contain traces. Luckily, there are natural predators that help keep our gardens free of pests. We can fight bugs with bugs! Beneficial insects are nature's way of stabilizing pest populations. Take for example, the common green lacewing (Chrysoperla carnea). Actually, take the offspring of this "aphid lion"; the adult lays her eggs on the foliage, each on the top of hair-like filaments. In a few days, the lacewing eggs hatch and the tiny larvae emerge with their voracious appetites for aphids, spider mites and red mites, thrips, whiteflies, long-tailed mealy bugs, the eggs of leafhoppers, moths and leafminers, small caterpillars, beetle larvae and tobacco budworms. The larvae look like miniature alligators with tiny ice tong-like pincers that inject paralyzing venom. They then draw out the bodily fluids of their victim. It's not necessarily pretty, but they will help to keep your crops from being destroyed by these pests. Many gardeners will find these in their gardens already, but they have become a staple at many garden centers, where they are sold to be released in your garden. Green lacewing larvae can be released on numerous plants such as cotton, sweet corn, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, apples and strawberries. About 10 lacewing eggs per plant, or 1,000 eggs per 200 sq. ft. will control a moderate aphid population. During the two to three weeks in the larvae stage they will each devour up to 200 victims a week. After this, they pupate by spinning a cocoon with silken thread and approximately five days later the adults emerge to complete the life cycle. There are five or six overlapping generations each season. Since the larvae feed for about two weeks, a second release, two weeks later, might be necessary. Chrysoperla carnea, the "original" green lacewing, just may prove to be the best all-purpose predator for your home garden. |
