The Urban Farming Guys

Ladybugs – Organic Pest Managment

Video Transcription…

Go, soldier, go! There’s a ladybug in our aquaponics grow bed. She’s our integrated pest management soldier, right here..gonna take care of any sign or thought of aphids; scale, anything, can be taken care of by this guy. Find the enemy! They can eat up to 50 aphids a day. Scout it out, Buddy! Ooh, that guy’s an over-achiever right there.

Integrated pest management is about finding alternative methods to handling common garden pests. So, instead of applying insecticide & pesticide on your plants, which we can’t even do in this system. We’ve got 1,000 fish here & aquaponically-grown plants here. So, if we have a problem with aphids, we just can’t spray them down because we’ve got fish. The water pours down to the fish. So, we’re forced to find alternative methods. But, we love organic anyway so this is just a plus.

We are going to release ladybugs into the system. This is just one form of integrated pest management, especially effective for aphids & scale. You know, you find a plant that has aphids on it, you wanna get that plant out. But, to go forward, it’s great to have lacewing bugs, ladybugs. We’re gonna release several right now for you.

These are about 1,500 ladybugs from Orcan organic control. Here we are; check that out.

Here we are, back in the greenhouse, & the ladybugs that we released a couple weeks ago have already laid eggs & have young here. I don’t have my closeup. They look like little alligators with two little orange spots. They will turn into ladybugs.

Then, there’s lacewing bugs, which are even more affective than ladybugs. We picked up some eggs here for $15. Here, the lacewing eggs are so small I separated them into little tiny cups to go into the different areas of the greenhouse so they can hatch out. Each of these little larvae can consume up to 1,000 aphids a day.

So, we’ve just barely covered the topic of integrated pest management..haven’t even talked about killer snails & just a comprehensive strategy; you know, obedience-trained bats..

But, we’re on a journey here, so stay tuned..