A small test in our garden: biological control against mealybugs

Per Italiano
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The name ‘mealybugs’is like a word from other planet for someone like me, grew up in small space of metropolis. I never thought that one day I had the need to fight against them…well, I never thought of having a garden to organize. It is something I am learning daily, slowly now. One of my masters is the youngest brother of Corrado, Pietro, who is 17 years old.

The solution is not as simple as it sounds: a gardener would resolve the invasion of mealybugs by treating the diseased plants with chemicals. But Pietro is teaching us how to use insects in nature us to combat the problem. We are in April and starts to get hot and humid and the mealybugs have recently begun to proliferate. They have a cylindrical figure, 5 mm long, and emit looking waxy and powdery. They are considered pests as they feed on plant juices of and also acts as a vector for several plant diseases, so we have been trying to fight against.

Pietro is a model student in Agricultural Technical Institute. He is crazy about insects and his room is basically a nusery room for insects. Although his parents always asked him to hang out with friends, or to participate activities like normal kids of today (such as going to the disco dancing), he prefers to stay at home to study insects. Since the plants in our garden begin to suffer from the invasion of mealybugs, so I ask Pietro to help us solving the problem without using chemical pesticides. Eventually, he spent 25euros on the Internet and bought thirty ladybugs (cryptolaemus montrouzieri) particularly effective in integrated pest management to mealybugs.

After few days, there arrived a small container full of ladybugs. We followed Pietro to the garden. He opened the container, took the ladybugs on his finger and gently placed them on the plants attacked by mealybugs. It is that simple. The ladybugs have just arrived shortly but started immediately eating like dying from hunger. After 20 minutes we went back to check and some mealybugs had already been devoured. Then another week later, we saw the small larvae of ladybugs that continued to eat the parasites.

Our garden in May, is full of flowers.