THE STUDY HAS ACHIEVED SOME RESULTS “VERY PROMISING”.

An investigation carried out by the Association of Organization of Fruit and Vegetable Producers of Almería, Coexphal, has discovered the usefulness of a species of parasitoid wasp for the control of the Tuta Absoluta.
As explained by the head of the Coexphal Pest Control department, Jan van der Blom, research has established that a type of parasitoid wasp, the “Necremnus”, used to control the plague of the Tuta Absoluta, known as tomato moth, and protect crops.

The study carried out in some greenhouses in the area of ​​Poniente Almeria has shown that the adult wasp looks for the larva of the Tuta Absoluta, which it injects with its sting a paralyzing poison.

Subsequently, the wasp lays an egg next to the larva of the Tuta Absoluta that hatches after a few days, and the wasp larva feeds on the paralyzed Tuta Absoluta larva and eventually kills it.

The parasitoids probably come from the natural vegetation surrounding the crops., Jan van der Blom has pointed out, where many species of moths similar to the Tuta Absoluta are found.

In one of the greenhouses, at least five species of hymenopteran parasitoids of the Tuta Absoluta were detected spontaneously.

among all, they came to parasitize more than sixty percent of the moth larvae, although the vast majority of parasitism was the work of a single species, of the genus Necremnus.

According to researchers, this discovery may be key to controlling the plague in the medium-long term, although parasitoids are not yet commercially available.

The head of Coexphal's Pest Control department explained that when a new pest appears, it usually spreads quickly and causes significant damage in the first year, although later there may be an ecological response, i.e., that the same native fauna detects the plague and preys on it.

Usually “matter of time” that this response of the native fauna of results and stop the plague, and although this point has not yet been reached, farmers can be “quiet” because it has been shown that the problem is “controllable” in the greenhouses.

This step in research opens the way to strategies such as the selection of predatory species to breed and release them on crops.

This can be achieved with the help of the vegetation surrounding the tomato plantations., so that the wasp spontaneously enters the greenhouses and eliminates the plague.