Biological control in Mexico.

Abstract

Abstract During the 1940s and 1950s, the number of native and exotic species of biocontrol agents used in Mexico amounted to 59 and most of these were parasitoids. Classical biocontrol was dominant and included control of hemipteran pests such as the woolly apple aphid, scales, citrus mealybugs, spittlebug, and the rhodesgrass mealybug. One of the globally recognized successes was classical biocontrol of the citrus blackfly with an imported parasitoid. In the 1960s, construction of mass-production centres for biocontrol organisms took place, for rearing of Trichogramma spp., among others. More recent cases of classical biocontrol, sometimes in combination with augmentative biocontrol, are the control of grasshoppers, pink hibiscus mealybug, velvet soybean worm, eucalyptus psyllid, Asian citrus psyllid, brown citrus aphid, and fruit flies. Examples of augmentative control are control of the Mexican bollworm with a native parasitoid, of diamondback moth with native and exotic parasitoids and of aphids with predators and an entomopathogenic fungus. Augmentative biocontrol is particularly popular for control of aphids, thrips, leaf miners, mites and whiteflies in vegetables and ornamentals, where several species of predators, parasitoids and microbial agents are used. Examples of today's large-scale augmentative programmes are control of sugarcane borers with Trichogramma spp., of sugarcane aphids with predators in soybean and of several species of locusts and grasshoppers with an entomopathogenic fungus. Currently, there are 65 companies producing and marketing 40 species of beneficial organisms, and more than 50 species of arthropods produced outside Mexico are authorized for importation to be used in specific pest control programmes.