Abstract
Calesnoacki How (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae) wwas released in citrus groves in Muheza (05°10' 0S, 38°46' 0E) and Morogoro (06° 49' 0" S, 37° 40' 0 E) Townships to control Aleurothrixusfloccosus Mask (Homoptera: Alleyrodidae). Sleeve cage and “free release” methods were used to introduce the parasitoid onto selected citrus trees. C. noacki adults and mummies were released at selected sites between 08:00 and 09:30 am on 14th September 1999.
 Adults were first observed 90 days after introduction. They were also recovered from 2nd and 3rd CWWF instars. At Morogoro, CWWF infestations by adults, eggs and nymphs were reduced by between 6 and 12 fold 90 days after release and between 30 and 300 fold 60 months after. At Muheza decreases were between 140 and 700 and 12 and 17 fold, respectively compared. Parasitoid recovery indicated its establishment. Recoveries were also on trees up to two kilometres away from release sites. Parasitoid release was also accompanied by vigour improvement of previously heavily infested citrus trees. This is the first report of successful use of C. noacki for control of A. floccosus in Tanzania, which was prevented from spreading from the original small infestation foci.
Highlights
The citrus woolly white fly, Aleurothrixus floccosus Mask (CWWF) was accidentally introduced into Eastern Africa, probably from the Mediterranean region and North Africa, where citrus is an important cash crop
Colonies of CWWF for raising C. nocki were reared on caged young potted orange seedlings at the Kibaha Biological Control Station (KBCS) in April 1999 from cultures of adult insects collected from citrus groves in Morogoro between April and May 1999
A shipment of C. noacki was made in Mid September 1999, part of which was reared on CWWF in the screen house at KBCS and part introduced directly in the field at Morogoro and Muheza (Seguni, 1999)
Summary
The citrus woolly white fly, Aleurothrixus floccosus Mask (CWWF) was accidentally introduced into Eastern Africa, probably from the Mediterranean region and North Africa, where citrus is an important cash crop. In this region, the pest had earlier caused severe crop losses in the 1970s in Morocco (Abbasi, 1975), Egypt (Vulic and Betran, 1977) and more recently in Ethiopia (Alemu et al, 2014). Sporadic pest presence was reported in small areas of Kilimanjaro region (Lohr, 1997) and Shinyanga and Dodoma (Mfugale, personal communication). The pest was discovered in small numbers on orange and lemon trees at Wanging’ombe in Njombe region (Seguni own observation, 2003)
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