The biological control of a mealy bug on coffee and other crops in Kenya
1. Pseudococcus kenyae is a mealy bug comparatively recently introduced to Kenya, where it rapidly became a major pest of coffee and of some native food crops. 2. Attempts to introduce controlling parasites and predators from various hosts proved unsucessful. 3. Following the determination that the insect was an undescribed species, known only from East Africa, a search for parasites was made in Uganda and Tanganyika, which resulted in the discovery of at least 9 species of primaries, of which 5 were bred in large numbers in Nairobi and liberated in European and native areas. 4. Three of these are now considered to be permanently established and one of them in particular has been of immediate value. The population of mealy bug both on coffee and native crops has decreased with remarkable speed and to a remarkable extent following its establishment. This has appreciably reduced the cost of producing coffee in the mealybug area, and has materially assisted many thousands of small produc ers in the native reserves. 5. This extremely favourable result may not be so completely maintained in future, and though the mealy bug can never be so severe a pest as before the introductions it may still prove to be a pest of some severity. The question of introducing further species will then come up for decision
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| Format: | biblioteca |
| Published: |
1943
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| Subjects: | PSEUDOCOCCUS, COCCIDIOS, CONTROL BIOLOGICO, KENIA, ORGANISMOS PARA CONTROL BIOLOGICO, PSEUDOCOCCUS KENYAE, |
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