Ladybug Benefits Pt 3

Ladybug Benefits Pt 3

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. Aphids may be little, but the damage they can wreak on your fruit trees is not. You could try to get rid of them with pesticides, but that may take several applications. A natural solution may be ladybugs that love to eat aphids.

Northwest Beneficials' Chris Morris says they can supply them by the gallons ...

MORRIS ... "A gallon is, literally is a dry-bulk gallon that is just all ladybugs. We transport them in kind of a cotton bag that is about 24 by 30 inches in size and contains one gallon of ladybugs. And that is about 72,000 ladybugs per gallon approximately.

Morris says lay them at the base of the tree and let the ladybugs do the work ...

MORRIS ... "They'll just climb up automatically so that they can go out to the far ends of the trees where the newest foliage is growing. That's where the aphids are and they scour the tree up and down, inside and out, everywhere around those new living tips because that's where the aphids are."

With organic production on the increase, ladybugs could be the answer ...

MORRIS ... "While there may be, in some of the organic pesticides, there may even be undetected side effects that we don't know about. And so, to play it safe use something that can be certainly assured as having no bad effects, as a side effect that you find out later, and nobody has ever died from having ladybugs crawl around on a fruit tree."

To find out more about getting ladybugs for your orchard, go to nwbeneficials.com.

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