Nursery Papers – Biological control in production nurseries

BACKGROUND: Managing insect and mite pests are critical for producing healthy nursery crops. There are many ways that production managers can achieve this
goal including cultural practices to prevent pest populations. Pesticides are also a valuable and commonly used tool. Biological control has been used less often by production nurseries but is now being used more.

Some of the reasons for this is that more pests can be managed with commercially available predators, i.e. there are more products being offered by biocontrol agent producers. The cost of predators has also decreased as producers of these species have adopted more efficient methods to rear and delivery their products. This can make biological control more attractive and competitive compared to use of pesticides.

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