Hopes For Biological Control Of Grassgrub

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30278, 2 November 1963, Page 6

Hopes For Biological Control Of Grassgrub

'PHE Entomology Division of 1 the Department at Scientific and Industrial Research is continuing to explore the possibilities of biological con- I trol of the grassgrub. Speaking of these efforts at s the annual conference of the s New Zealand Grassland As- c sociation last week, the director of the division, Dr. i W. Cottier, said that the I grassgrub was a native insect i and it had some dozen or so t natural enemies, but there £ was nothing that really con- 1 trolled it. The fact that it ‘ was a native meant that most I people thought it was going f to be a particularly difficult 1 proposition to graft an exotic <

parasite or predator on to it, but there was nothing to show that this was not a reasonable task to attempt. This had been done twice in Fiji. “We have good hopes that it may be possible to find a parasite on a similar species in some part of the world that may control our grassgrub species in New Zealand,” said Dr. Cottier. ". ... So we have reinstituted a campaign of looking for possible natural enemies overseas and at present the

Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control is looking for these in South America. We are sending them annually about £ 1000 for this search and we are almost on the point of receiving material from them.

“\Vc are also interested in the possibilities of using biological control agents such as bacteria, viruses and protozoa, nematodes or parasitic worms and fungi and we have at our laboratory at the present time a Fulbright scholar from the University of California, Professor Hall,

who we are hoping will help us in this direction. The Department of Agriculture is also co-operating in this field and have made a number of investigations with materials they have imported from oversees.”