small-scale mites of the family Eriophyidae and Tarsonemidae cause major problems in various crops . The love apple russet mite , Aculops lycospersici , can be very problematic in tomato . Other harmful touch of this family are the dry bulb mite , Aceria tulipae , which do problem during the reposition of tulips , and the redberry mite Acalitus essigi , which damage the fruit in blackberry . In amaryllis , it bear on the bulb ordered series mite , Stenotarsonemus laticeps , in bromeliads , the pineapple plant tarsonemid mite , Stenotarsonemus banana tree , and in gerbera , it is often a mix of Tarsonemus violae and the broad mite Polyphagotarsonemus latus .
Although the crop where these hint cause trouble are entirely different , they all have in coarse that the mites are very unmanageable to control due to their extremely small dimension . Predatory speck are , in principle , effective predators , but they can not get to the places where these small mite are hiding .
Entomologists from Wageningen University & Research have investigated Modern born enemies for the control of lowly mite in a top sector project . During this research , the tiny gall midge Trisopsis tyroglyphi was divulge , whose larvae proved to be ripe predators of both eriophyid and tarsonemid mites . The species was for the first time found in the Netherlands . The larva can develop very well on the storage mite Tyrophagous putrescentiae . It was striking that adolescent development was particularly slow at 15 degrees ( > 80 days ) . At 25 grade , the aliveness cycle per second is comparatively inadequate , on average 23 days . The midge adults are very delicate and live only for four days .
The diligence of these predatory midges as biologic ascendancy agents is very crop - drug-addicted . In amaryllis , they were found deep in the bulb where they predate on bulb scale leaf touch , but in practice , they failed to establish . In bromeliads , under humid and warm conditions , the predatory midge was found to settle surprisingly well in bloom . However , the part to the ascendency of the pineapple tarsonemid mite has not yet been certify . A trial with genus Gerbera indicate that the predatory midge could contribute to the mastery of the encompassing mite , but complete ascendence was not achieved .
The best result were achieved on ail . There the wry bulb soupcon was reduced by more than 80 % in treatments with the predatory midge , but this was only achieved when supplemented with the prey mite T. putrescentiae . We believe that this new predatory midge could be an interesting unexampled dominance broker for tarsonemid and eriophyid mites in tulip , begonia , and mayhap gerbera . The predatory midges are sluttish and relatively cheap to rear on storage mites , and a permission has been granted for habit in practice session .
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