1. Biocontrol Tour of Ontario, Canada
Sponsored by:
New York State Integrated Pest Management, New York Farm Viability Institute,
and New York State Flower Industries

2. Say it with flowers - The tour got started with a visit to the Erie Basin Flower Trials in Buffalo

3. Lots of information from Albert Grimm at Jeffery's Greenhouses
Write that down
Lots of information from Albert Grimm at Jeffery's Greenhouses

4. Early flowering mums are used as a trap plant for thrips at Boekestyn Greenhouses

5. ID is essential!

6. Gotcha
Trap crops can be used as a distribution point for beneficial insects, in this case the thrips predator Amblyseius swirskii

7. They're tiny but fast
Looking at A. swirskii predatory mites at Boekestyn Greenhouse with Ed Boekestyn

8. Green jungle - Biocontrol works for greenhouse vegetables, too.

9. Mike Short, of EcoHabitat AgriServices explains the use of Banker Plants at Waldan Gardens

10. Bob Newhouse produces his own banker plants and infests them with bird cherry oat aphids as a food source for the parasitoid Aphidius colemanii

11. Wasps you want
These Aphidius wasps fly throughout the greenhouse searching for aphids to parasitize.

12. Eggplants make good whitefly trap plants in the poinsettia crop at Ravensbergen Greenhouses

13. Hey, over here!
Yellow pots and eggplants are attractive to whitefly. Encarsia formosa and Eretmocerus eremicus are used to control them at Jeffery's Greenhouses

14. Ask the expert
Graeme Murphy of OMAFRA in Ontario shows growers parasitized whitefly pupae on eggplant leaves

15. Can you see it?
Minute plant bugs (Orius species) can come in through open windows and help out with pest control

16. Lots of places to hide
Orchardcreek Greenhouse uses biological control to manage several pests in their cut gerbera crop

17. Delphastus beetles will feed on all stages of whitefly
Beneficial beetle
Delphastus beetles will feed on all stages of whitefly

18. An impromptu stop at the Stokes plant trials in the Niagara Peninsula gave us a chance to stretch out legs and minds

19. Mark Yadon described the many biological control methods used at Mischler's Greenhouse, a retail operation with a wide range of crops.

20. Slow but steady
Slow release packets of Amblyseius cucumeris include an additional food source for the predatory mites so that the population can increase in the greenhouse

21. One stop shopping
This plant has it all - cards with Encarsia pupae, corn cob grits on the leaves used to apply spider mite predators, a sachet at the top left for thrips predators, and a small canister that was used to hold another type of whitefly parasitoid.

22. Research in practice
Carol Glenister describes a research project she is running at Mischler's greenhouse

23. Grower to grower
One of the purposes of the tour was to help growers help each other implement biological control in their own greenhouses