{"id":39928,"date":"2015-09-30T11:42:32","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T15:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/modernfarmer.com\/?p=39928"},"modified":"2024-07-05T12:55:12","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T16:55:12","slug":"parasitic-wasps-pesticide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernfarmer.com\/2015\/09\/parasitic-wasps-pesticide\/","title":{"rendered":"The Most Terrifying Way to Fight Pests: Parasitic Wasps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>These insects naturally prey on all kinds of pests we don&#8217;t like, from <a href=\"http:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/news\/2010\/07\/100719-parasites-wasps-bugs-cassava-thailand-science-environment\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">mealyworms in Thailand<\/a> to horseflies in North America. The way they work is, well, pretty gross: They lay their eggs directly into the pest, and when the wasp eggs hatch, they eat their way out, killing their pest-home. It&#8217;s gruesome! Nature red in tooth and claw!<\/p>\n<p>Farmers can buy wasps to use as pest control, though often they&#8217;re done as a last-ditch option rather than for prevention since they can be kind of expensive; certainly more than spray-on pesticides. (On the other hand, you don&#8217;t forfeit your organic certification if you use wasps as pest control.) The specific ways wasps are used isn&#8217;t all that well understood, which <a href=\"http:\/\/jipm.oxfordjournals.org\/content\/6\/1\/16\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a new paper<\/a>, published in the <em>Journal of Integrated Pest Management<\/em>, points out.<\/p>\n<p>Horseflies are a perfect example. Horseflies are well-known to humans for their aggressive, blood-sucking bite; they can take a chunk of flesh out with their powerful jaws. But for animals, especially horses, they can be much more dangerous. They can transmit equine infectious anemia, sometimes known as swamp fever, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.orkin.com\/flies\/horse-flies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">which can result<\/a> in lethargy, weight loss, and even death. Parasitic wasps are a great candidate for pest control against horseflies, but not all that much is known about how they operate and what they prefer.<\/p>\n<p>Turns out, individual species prefer specific livestock dung for breeding, which is important for figuring out which variety of wasp is best to provide long-lasting pest prevention. You have to make sure that the wasp wants to stick around your farm and attack your pests, and that means giving the wasp a nice home. And the wasp wants specific kinds of dung. No judgments! Some of us still live in New York City. We all have our weird housing preferences.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, the study determined a specific species that prefers horse dung, and another that prefers cow dung, which could easily increase the efficiency of parasitic wasps as pest control agents. It&#8217;s gross, scary, and weird, but this is what&#8217;s involved in figuring out how best to get rid of pests without dangerous synthetic chemical pesticides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gaaaaaaah get it away!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":39929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":[33278],"meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[33295],"article-theme":[],"class_list":["post-39928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-archive","format-article"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Most Terrifying Way to Fight Pests: Parasitic Wasps - Modern Farmer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Gaaaaaaah get it away!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/modernfarmer.com\/2015\/09\/parasitic-wasps-pesticide\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Most Terrifying Way to Fight Pests: Parasitic Wasps - 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