Stoneville Research Quarantine Facility: A National Center for Support of Research on Biological Control of Arthropod and Weed Pests

Abstract

Organisms for biological control shipped to the United States from foreign countries must be processed through a quarantine facility that has been inspected and approved by USDA, Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, Plant Protection and Quarantine (APHIS, PRQ) for receiving the kind of material being imported. There are currently 20 state and federal facilities acting as quarantine receiving centers for exotic beneficial organisms in the United States. Their size, mission and types of organisms each handles varies widely and recently have been described by Knutson et al. (1982). None previously existed that could conveniently provide adequate services for programs involving the importation of exotic natural enemies of pests in the mid-South region of the United States.