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LA
TRINIDAD, Benguet—Bottled predatory mites? Odd-sounding,
but it’s the latest product trotted out by the
strawberry industry of La Trinidad.
Predatory mites are collected from corn husks, which
provide crevices for the mites to cling on, and then
bottled, and all strawberry farmers have to do is to
sprinkle them on strawberry leaves being attacked by
spider-mite pests.
The
concept is a byproduct of a US Agency for International
Development (USAID)-supported project to solve the
problem of spider mites attacking the strawberry fields
in La Trinidad, Benguet.
Washington
State University
acarologist Dr. Beverly Gerdeman helped strawberry
farmers in the area identify the spider mites and
trained them on how to propagate Neoseiulus
longispinosus, or simply predator mites, to fight spider
mites or cyclamen, the most common pest destroying La
Trinidad’s strawberry fields.
Ironically, in order to reproduce the predator mites,
the farmers have to ensure the population of their very
enemy, the spider mites, as food for the predators. The
balance has to be well monitored as manageable for
predators to control spider-mite population.
The
project, Rearing Evaluation and Release of Native
Predatory Mites for Biological Control of Spider Mites
Attacking Strawberry in La Trinidad, was initiated under
the Integrated Pest Management Program of the USAID to
wean farmers from heavy dependence on chemical farm
inputs.
Gerdeman
said the project aims to encourage organic production of
strawberries by controlling pests in natural ways.
“You
have an arsenal of predatory mites available here,” she
told strawberry farmers here who attended the briefing
on a strawberry-production forum as part of the
strawberry festival this week in La Trinidad.
But
because farmers are using traditional pesticides, they
are also killing the predators together with the spider
mites.
Gerdeman
said her group has trained farmers and will continue
developing the method until 2009, the project’s duration
on how to rear predator mites.
We see
two routes in doing this. One is the mass production of
predatory mites in a centralized location and farmers
can purchase them from the municipal agricultural office
or they can be reproduced in small-scale and used by the
individual farmers themselves,” she said.
Gerdeman
has taught the art of field insectary to rear the
predators, which diverts the electrical costs of
laboratory rearing to open field elements.
It
entails rearing spider mites on the bean leaves and
releasing predators to feed on them. But since spider
mites thrive on the underside of leaves as they do not
like light, application is cumbersome, and so the idea
of bottled predator mites was thought of.
The
method is also very apt for farmers here because they
stoop low to the ground and know their plants and their
maladies, unlike in the USA where the methods involve
highly mechanized spraying and chemically-oriented
methods since strawberry fields are very large.
Trained
farmers here have adapted well to the technology, even
developing their own methods, like rearing under tunnels
as the predators reproduce faster in warm temperature.
Gerdeman
described farmers here as knowledgeable, independent and
adaptable, resulting in an ever-changing approach to
production, and thus the idea of bottled mites.
Gerdeman
said that
Indonesia
and other Southeast Asian countries are now adapting the
La Trinidad method of controlling spider mites and are
following closely how the method progresses to bottled
products. |
