Their Bug Business Is Big Business

Their Bug Business Is Big Business LIVESTOCK Exotic Animals 19-4-33 Business has never been better, say producers of farm bugs who supply a variety of insects for farmers and farm researchers. "Pest control options are becoming limited as cities extend out into farming areas," says Jackie Dann, who supplies tiny wasps that control fly populations around livestock facilities. Dann gets her tiny stingless wasps from Arizona Biological Control Inc. The wasps lay eggs inside fly pupae. The developing wasp kills and eats the developing fly and then lays its own eggs inside other fly pupae to repeat the cycle. The naturally-occurring wasps are host-specific, they don't swarm, and they bur-row into the ground, so you don't even know they're around, she says. Her main customers are feedlot owners, who use the wasps to kill flies from May to September, and poultry and hog producers, who use them year around. It takes one package, or 80,000 wasps, per thousand head of cattle to provide ad-equate control. A package costs $30 (Canadian), so it works out to about 50 or 60 cents per head. The wasps are shipped via courier in a white bag filled with wood shavings they nest in. One package is put out immediately, the other is refrigerated and put out two weeks later. Another bug producer, Lee French, of French Agricultural Research near Lamberton, Minn, says his business in-creases every year. In fact, he and his wife, Joann, plan to put up a second insectary soon and branch out into other insects. The Frenches currently grow corn root-worms and European corn borers, which they supply to researchers at universities and seed and chemical companies. They have more than 200 regular customers and produce as many as 150 mil-lion corn rootworm eggs and 3 million corn borer egg masses a year, as well as smaller quantities of other insects. These include corn ear worms, black cutworms, tobacco budworms and tobacco hornworms. The Frenches average 25 egg shipments per week during winter and up to 75 per week during the corn-growing season. Their biggest-ever sale was over 25 mil-lion corn rootworm eggs; smallest 1,000 eggs. Price per thousand drops as order size increases. Their lowest price is $2,000 per million. The Frenches plan to raise cabbage loopers, fall armyworms and beet armyworms in their new insectary. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Manibico Biological Ltd., Box 17, Group 242, R.R. 2, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3C 2E6 (ph 204 697-0868) or French Agricultural Re-search, R.R. 2, Box 294, Lamberton, Minn. 56152 (ph 507 752-7274). (Western Producer, Soybean Digest)

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