US (CA): Citrus industry gets psyllid eating wasp
Specifically, the state and federal officials are working on programs to breed Tamarixia radiata, a tiny, parasitic wasp native to Pakistan.
In its home territory the insect is the natural predator of the psyllid, which is actually slightly larger than it.
Brian Taylor, field program director for the Visalia-based Citrus Research Board, said Tamarixia lay eggs beneath newly-hatched psyllids — or “nymphs” — and once the wasps hatch, the nymphs become their food.
“It literally eats its way out” of the nymph’s carcass, said Taylor, an entomologist by trade.
The reason why the citrus industry wants to use the little, non-stinging wasps is because University of California, Riverside, researchers have found that they only lay their eggs under Asian citrus psyllid nymphs, and no other psyllids or insect species native to California, Taylor said.
Researchers want to breed the Tamarixia at a rate of about 4 million a year, initially in parts of Los Angeles, Riverside and Orange counties, to help kill off some of the psyllids that have colonized there in recent years, he said.
Source: visualtimesdelta.com
