SMALL but terrible brontispa finds a dose of its own medicine.
The blight that has shaken the country’s coconut industry has finally found a nemesis, microorganism that lay their larvae on the brontispa and parasitize on them.
And like how the pests infest on a coconut palm and parasitize on them, its nemesis also do the same on its host insects.
The cocofarmers’ new-found ally are entomopathogens, or micro-organisms that cause disease in the infestation-affecting insects.
These micro-organism are being subjected to further tests against the insects wreaking havoc on the country’s coconut industry, sources from the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) reveal. .
The country’s coconut industry stirred recently in alarm over reports the infestation of insect parasite brontispa logissima which has hit 1.8 million coconut plantations across the country.
Since its infestations, the country’s authorities have been attempting to put up defenses and the first endemic solution was deployment of earwigs in infested areas, reports the PCA.
In further search for more solutions, PCA has discovered new parasitoid insects.
According to PCA Administrator Oscar G. Garin, the PCA research center in the Davao City has identified two indigenous small insects that parasitize Brontispa by laying their eggs in the larva or pupa of the pest”
The administrator revealed that the PCA-Davao Reseach Center conducted a Field Release Evaluation where a total of 1,948 parasitoid adults were released in infested barangays in Region XI and parallel laboratory tests.
“The parasitoids collected in the field inflicted about 30-50 percent parasitism on the pest’s larva or pupa” Garin noted adding that laboratory results showed that around 7 to 47 adult parasitoids emerged from one larva/pupa 18 to 26 days from injection for parasitization.
Over this, Garin has said “with the earwigs, we now have three indigenous species for biological control of this foreign pest”
However, he still underscored the need to adopt a long-term integrated pest management system and a more proactive solution to respond to the threat.
The administrator stressed also that chemical insecticides administered through trunk injection should only be in severe cases and at first treatment, with the long term and sustainable approach to be comprised of biological control, use of entomophatogen fungi, good farming practices and strict quarantine controls. (rachiu/PIA)