South Africa teams up with India on bio pest control

Image Source: Hortgro Science

Malan specialises in the development of methods whereby biological organisms like nematodes can be used to control economically important fruit pests.

Mass production

For the next three years, Malan will team up with Dr Prasanna Belur from the Karnataka National Institute of Technology to build knowledge and develop expertise for the mass production of the insect-fighting nematodes.

Belur says that the only way to achieve mass production is through the use of bioreactors – a process in which he has honed his skills over several years.
Belur believes that biological control using nematodes can be affordable to growers if suitable processes are developed and he is hopeful that the results will benefit Indian and South African producers.

According to Addison, the current collaboration will accelerate research on the mass culture of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN’s). “Mass culture and the formulation of EPN’s is highly technical. In order to apply EPN’s within the industry we will need a regular supply of formulated EPN’s. When one considers that up to 1 million EPN’s are applied per tree, we will need a lot!

“The efficient mass production of EPN’s will result in an available and affordable biological control agent. The use of EPN’s within an integrated pest management programme looks very promising as they should allow for the control of above ground and below ground pests,” he says.

Read the full article on Agri Africa.