Yellow tea thrip (Scirtothrips dorsalis Hood (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) is anthophilous pests of many crops worldwide including five flavor berry. And the mealy bug (Pseudaulacaspis cockerelli (Cooley) (Hemiptera: Diaspididae)) is one of the hardest pests to control. Its body is covered with white waxy threads, which often make a chemical pest control useless. Five flavor berry (Schisandra chinensis Baill) is used in traditional Chinese medicine. So, the development of biological control against the major pest on five flavor berry is of great interest. In this work, a treatment of Chrysoperla nipponensis (Okamoto) was applied to five flavor berry fields infested by P. cockerelli and a treatment of Amblyseius swirskii Athias-Henriot was applied to two types of five flavor berry fields infested by S. dorsalis. Even though our tests found significant differences between the two culturing method(sod culture, nonwoven type mulching), the treatment of biological control agents decreased or a little increased the fruit damage, which was comparable to the chemical insecticide treatment. In the sod culture experiment, thrip population was significantly low and increased at a lower rate than in the nonwoven type mulching. It may be suggested from these results that A. swirskii and C. nipponensis as IPM program and sod culture could be incorporated into the integrated pest management system on five flavor berry.

A project has been launched and aims to introduce Amblyseius swirskii for the control of Tetranychuns urticae in rose cultivating greenhouse. This study was intended to use selective acaricide, sensibly, to reduce risk for the natural enemy agent of A. swirskii in controlling T. urticae. T. urticae was susceptible strain UD from Entomology laboratory of SNU and A. swirskii was purchased from commercially available source. When LC50s were compared with A. swirskii and T. urticae of abamectin 1.8EC and 7 other acaricides, chlorfenapyr+cyenopyrafen (4+20)SC, abamectin 1.8EC, and chlorfenapyr 10SC for A. swirskii showed 148, 74, and 14 times, respectively, higher dose than T. urticae, as selective acaricides. However, fenpropathrin 5EC and fenpyroximate 5SC for T. urticae showed 22, and 25 times, respectively, higher dose than A. swirskii. For T. urticae bifenazate 23.5SC and cyflumetofen 20SC showed more than 97% mortality at less than the recommended dose, but the acricides did not kill A. swirskii 16 and 4 times as much dose as the recommended dose. The results suggested that several acaricides have inherent lower toxicity to A. swirskii. For practical application, it might be recommended to use acaricides in a way to strengthen inherent selectivity.

Lettuce was a leaf vegetable with short growing term and cold-tolerant plant. We grew it the whole year. The price of lettuce is the most expensive from July to September. But damages by lots of insect pests appear to greenhouse grown lettuce in summer season. In this study, we observed biological controls of western flower thrips(Franklinella occidentalisi) by the predator mites, Amblyseius swirskii and Neoseiulus cucumeris in lettuce greenhouse from July 7 to September 10. Hypoaspis aculerfer larvae and adults were released 30 individuals per m2 at the first one time as lettuce was planted on the greenhouse. We checked the density of F. occidentalis every 10 days on the 30 lettuce leaves. When the population of F. occidentalis reached 1~5 individuals per a leaf, A. swirskii larvae and adults were released 35 individuals per m2 at 1~3 times and Neoseiulus cucumeris larvae and adults also were released 150 individuals per m2 at 2~3 times in each lettuce greenhouse. During the high temperature season, Amblyseius swirskii was more effective biological controls of F. occidentalis than Neoseiulus cucumeris.

By releasing predatory mite, Amblyseius swirskii Athias-Henriot, with 25 individuals per cucumber plant in a commercial greenhouse (1,600 ㎡), the population of western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande), was kept under the economic threshold level. The initial thrips population of 18.3 individuals per leaf decreased to 2.1 individuals per leaf after four weeks, while the number of A. swirskii reached to 16.6 individuals per leaf. It was also observed that at a point where the thrips occurred in high density of about 34.3 individuals per leaf, A. swirskii population built up on the lower part of cucumber plant first, but as time passed the predatory mites moved upward to the top of the plant and aggregated.

Predation, development, and ovipostion experiments were conducted to evaluate Amblyseius swirskii (Athias-Henriot) (Acari: Phytoseiidae) as a potential biological control agent for tomato russet mite, Aculops lycopersici (Massee) (Acari: Eriophyidae) which is a periodic pest of greenhouse tomatoes. Results show that A. swirskii attacked all developmental stages of A. lycopersici, and had a type II functional response on the prey densities given. The predation rates of A. swirskii on A. lycopersici in the presense of alternative food sources such as pollen, thrips first instar, or whitefly eggs were recorded as 74%, 56%, and 76%, respectively of the predation rate on A. lycopersici alone. Amblyseius swirskii successfully completed their life-cycle on either A. lycopersici or cattail pollen. At 25oC, 70% RH, development time of female A. swirskii fed on A. lycopersici or on cattail pollen took 5.0 and 6.2 days, respectively. For the first 10 days after moulting to the adult stage, A. swirskii fed on A. lycopersici had higher daily oviposition rate (2.0 eggs per day) than on pollen (1.5 eggs per day). From this laboratory study, it can be concluded that A. swirskii has promising traits as a predator against A. lycopersici and that their populations can be stably maintained using alternative food such as cattail pollen. We suggest that the effectiveness of A. swirskii against A. lycopersici under field conditions deserves to be investigated.

지중해이리응애(Amblyseius swirskii Athias-Henriot)는 담배가루이와 총채벌레의 밀도를 동시에 억제할 수 있는 생물적 방제원으로서, 그 활용가치가 증가하고 있는 천적이다. 2007년 국내 도입된 후 산업화가 이루어지고 있으나, 이에 대한 생물적 특성은 명확히 구명되지 않고 있다. 본 연구는 온도별 발육 특성 연구를 통하여 대량생산 및 생물적 방제의 기초 자료 제공을 목적으로 하였다. 지중해이리응애는 (주)나비스에서 분양받아, 설탕응애를 먹이로 하여 실내 사육 후 항온조건(15, 20, 25, 30, 35℃)에서 발육단계별 발육기간, 성비, 성충의 일평균산란수를 조사하고, 이 자료를 바탕으로 발육영점온도와 유효적산온도를 추정하였다. 상대습도는 75% 내외, 광주기는 16L:8D로 고정하고, 조사는 12시간 간격으로 실시하였다. 온도가 증가함에 따라 발육기간이 짧아지다가 35℃에서는 다시 증가하는 비선형 패턴을 보였다. 15℃에서 15.9±1.01일로 가장 길었고, 30℃에서 4.7±0.25일로 가장 짧았다. 15℃에서 30℃ 사이의 발육속도는 선형모델에 적합하였고(각각 r2>0.95), 발육영점온도는 유충이 8.6℃로 가장 낮고, 알이 12.8℃로 가장 높게 추정되었다. 성충까지의 유효적산온도는 7.7℃를 기준으로 123.9DD로 추정되었다. 성충의 성비는 암컷 비율이 0.65 (n=66)으로 나타나, 통상적인 포식성이리응애류의 암컷 비율과 비슷하였다. 조사한 일일 평균 산란수는 20℃에서 1.35±0.18, 25℃에서 1.64±0.99, 그리고 30℃에서 4.08±1.75, 35℃에서 0.70±0.47로 30℃에서 일일 산란수가 가장 많은 것으로 나타났다.