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Entry Date
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Nick Name
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Location
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Friday, May 26, 2006
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IanP
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Lymington UK
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Entry 36 of 142 |
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All the pumpkins are still growing well but we could do with some warm weather to fatten them up.We just started on our pest control for this year about 2 weeks ago.As it may be a little different from other growers I thought I would give a brief explanation.We normally only tend to use biological control if possible and it only really works if you start early or introduce controls at the first sign of pest damage.
We had a pest management programme made up for us by a local company and all we need to do is release the predators when they get delivered by post.
For Red spider Mite we put on a small predatory mite called Amblyseius .These normally feed on the spider mite eggs and we put them on the plants every 4 weeks.
For Aphid control we introduce small parasitic wasps called aphidius and put these out every 2 weeks.
For White fly we have 2 controls. The first is a bug called Macrolophus, these are my favorite and they only have to be indroduced once. They are little green bugs and they move like hell no white fly is safe with these babys around. The second is called Encarsia which are put in every week. These are another type of parasitic wasp which lay their eggs in the white fly scales.
If needed we can use some chemical control but we need to be careful not to damage of friendly bugs, wasps and mites. I will finish this entry with a photo of the Encarsia card which we put round the plants. I hope it wasn’t to boring
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