The Bug Farm

I am starting a report for the coming week about availability of organisms that sometimes have issues. Hopefully if you are planning an order of beneficials this will give you a heads up on what to expect in the next week or so.

Lindorus production here at Rincon-Vitova Insectaries has been in a puzzling slump the last two months or so, but I am happy to report that we have it back up. We had a summer intern who tended the culture and devised some ingenious techniques. After he left we gradually figured out that one of the techniques to boost egg laying just left us with hordes of hungry larvae eating up all the scale and not making it through the pupal stage. Our system wasn’t designed to feed so many predators! When it fell to me to fill orders without enough new adults coming on, it became a very rewarding experience helping those little beetles get their life cycle on. It’s a give and take situation, figuring out the right amount of food, and when to rotate said food, and how to not over collect. So when a customer gets shorted a vial or so, it’s now because there are lots of orders and we need to keep enough beetles laying eggs for future orders. There is now plenty to go around.

Brian at Applied Bio-Nomics (our Canadian supplier) reports his “Bad” Employee for the month of November is Atheta. “We have detected a parasitic mite (phoretic) and are re-culturing. This is a common problem with Atheta. We should be able to be back in business soon. This contamination is only apparent in the high densities of a commercial culture and does not affect their performance in the field…. We might be able to supply a little bit this month, but I can’t make any guarantees.”

Our Orius source remains unpredictable, so first come first serve works.

Check here every Wednesday for weekly updates or you can see a detailed list at the Product Availability Page at RinconVitova.com. You can also call us for details at 800-248-BUGS.