Argentine Wasps To Be Used Against Grass Grub

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30794, 5 July 1965, Page 11

Argentine Wasps To Be Used Against Grass Grub

(N.Z. Press Association) NELSON, July 4. Thousands of wasps caught in the pampas country of Southern Argentina and Chile will be flown to New Zealand next summer. They are Thynnid wasps, a parasitic species which lay their eggs underground on a host similar to the New Zealand grass grub. Pilot releases have already been made in suitable Marlborough and Nelson valleys where ent nologists of the D.S.I.R. hope the Thynnids will establish themselves and wipe out the grass grub. Because of their noncolonising habits and their narrow selection of a host, there is no fear that they will become a menace to crops or man as the larger German wasp has done. Dr. D. C. Lloyd, an em /Biologist of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control. who has worked with the D.S.I.R. in Nelson for the last four months, said today that even if successful, the efforts to establish Thynnid wasps in New Zealand would be slow. The selection of feeding areas for the adult wasp were as important as the attractive-

ness of the grass grub to the young. Next summer, major releases would be made in the central pumice lands of the North Island, one of the worst areas in the country for grass grub infestation.