Spring is born and summer is long, and autumn harvest is hidden in winter. Summer is the most active season for all things, the crops, vegetables and fruits in the fields are growing vigorously, and the small insects on the ground are busy nibbling on the crops. In the fields on the outskirts of Beijing, there are some beneficial insects, which specialize in catching pests that harm crops.
Where did these beneficial predator insects come from? The Beijing News reporter learned that at present, Beijing has 14 biological natural enemy production lines, which can produce more than 20 kinds of biological natural enemies, and the annual output of natural enemies reaches 300 billion. Recently, the reporter came to Beijing Kuoye Pastoral Biotechnology Company located in Kangzhuang Town, Yanqing District, to visit how these small bugs that protect the safety of crops are produced.
Ladybug production workshop. Beijing News reporter Yang Yijing photographed
The modern version of "Unwilling"
In a cucumber greenhouse in Guangjitun Village, Yanqing Town, Yanqing District, there are some white aphids on the leaves of cucumbers that harm plant growth.
Experts at the Beijing Plant Protection Station hung some turtle-patterned ladybird bug cards on cucumber stems. The black tortoiseshell ladybird crawls out of the insect card and preys on the leaves one by one, using this "insect treatment" method to greatly reduce the spraying of pesticides.
The Turtle Ladybird Card contains at least 20 eggs. Beijing News reporter Yang Yijing photographed
With the development of society, in recent years, people pay special attention to the health and safety of food, green food and organic food are more favored by people, many people hope to "revive" the traditional farming methods, without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, to ensure that the food sent to the mouth is safer, and the biological control method of "insect treatment" is an important way to safely eliminate insect pests.
Speaking of the biological control method of "treating insects with insects", there is an ancient text called "Insects to Treat Insects" in junior high school textbooks, which is from the Northern Song Dynasty Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Pen Talk", which records that during the Song Dynasty, during the Song Dynasty, a beneficial insect named "Gong Unwilling" appeared in the fields of Gyeongju, which can eliminate the pest "sub-square insects", so that crops can be harvested, which is a biological protection method of "one thing drops one thing".
Nowadays, in agricultural production, the biological control method of insect control is also widely used. It is understood that there are two main methods for insect predators to eliminate pests, one is predation and the other is parasitism. Last year, in the control of the grassland night moth, the primary pest of food, the Beijing Municipal Plant Protection Department used natural enemies such as borer yellow red-eyed bees, East Asian small flower bugs, big red rhinoceros hunting bugs and heterochromatic ladybirds for control, and these natural enemy insects are produced in local insect enterprises in Beijing.
Take good care of predatory insects
In the workshop of The BroadField Biotechnology Company in Kangzhuang Town, Yanqing District, the staff is cutting out pieces of small blades with ladybird eggs from large tobacco leaves, and then putting several blades the size of small fingernails into the worm card to ensure that each worm card contains at least 20 ladybug eggs.
Workers are cutting eggs from tobacco leaves to make ladybug cards. Beijing News reporter Yang Yijing photographed
"This is our workshop for producing heterochromatic ladybirds and turtle-patterned ladybirds, and the bug cards are all handmade." Zhang Hongyan, general manager of Kuwano Company, said that the staff collected plants with aphids from the park where the base is located, such as tobacco leaves, gray ash vegetables (a wild vegetable), etc., and used these aphids as the "food" of ladybugs, and after placing adult ladybugs on the leaves of plants, ladybugs will lay eggs on the leaves, and the staff will collect the eggs to make adult insect cards.
At present, the factory can make more than 4,000 bug cards a day.
The aphids on the tobacco leaves are ladybug "feed". Beijing News reporter Yang Yijing photographed
It is understood that Kuoye is one of the most important natural enemy insect production enterprises in Beijing.
A total of 7 species of natural enemy insects, including the new small sycophanus pasta, the Chilean sycamore mite, the East Asian small flower bug, the smoke blind bug, the heterochromatic ladybird and the tortoiseshell ladybird, are produced.
East Asian flower bugs. Beijing News reporter Yang Yijing photographed
Compared with the breeding of livestock and poultry, raising insects has higher requirements for the environment, bugs are afraid of both cold and heat, and need to adjust the temperature and humidity of the production room to the range of insects' favorites, "Generally require 26 ° C -28 ° C, so we have installed air conditioning in our workshop, whether it is hot summer or cold winter, we can ensure that the temperature is more than 20." Humidity is generally 40%-50%, but the new Babbitt small mite prefers a humid environment and needs to reach 90%. Zhang Hongyan said that although the bugs are small, each end is a painstaking effort, do not want them to die, the staff are trying their best to take care of the bugs.
The biological chain in the Worm Factory
Since ancient times, insects have had a great influence on human life, people enjoy the honey and silk produced by insects, but also suffer from mosquitoes and flies and crop-eating pests. Humans classify insects as beneficial or pests according to whether they are beneficial or harmful to themselves.
In predator factories, both beneficial and pest pests need to be carefully bred to eat, drink and reproduce according to their nature. At the same time as raising beneficial insects, it is also necessary to raise pests as food, and a biological chain has also been formed in the factory, "For example, if we raise small plant mites in Chile, we have to raise its food, that is, red spiders (leaf mites), which is a pest that nibbles on plants, so we also have to cultivate some crops that red spiders like to eat for them." ”
Plant protection station experts put East Asian small flower bugs on peppers to control the pest thrips. Beijing News reporter Yang Yijing photographed
The reporter saw in the insect factory that some workers were moving out pots of kidney beans and broad beans, "which are used to raise red spiders and aphids", Sun Beibei, an agronomist at the Beijing Plant Protection Station, told reporters that the production of insect predators, to ensure that their food is enough, it is necessary to ensure that the population is large enough when raising pests.
Just as poultry will get sick and die, insects will also get sick and die, "it is actually not easy to raise insects", general manager Zhang Hongyan said, sometimes on rainy days, aphids and other bugs are easy to get sick and die, "In addition to getting sick, we are also very afraid of bugs being 'polluted'." ”
The main susceptibility to contamination is the food of natural enemies of insects, that is, various pests, the so-called "contaminated" is that there are other beneficial insects that eat the pests and affect the laying of eggs. Zhang Hongyan told reporters that in addition to collecting plants with aphids directly from the park that were seen in the workshop, the factory will also raise some aphids as food for natural enemies. These aphids, which are the "rations" of beneficial insects, are easily contaminated, "for example, there are some aphid cocoon bees that will fly into the workshop, which is a parasitic bee in the body of an aphid, once parasitized, the aphids become 'zombie aphids', can not continue to make food for ladybirds, food is gone, and it is difficult for ladybugs to continue to raise." ”
Zhang Hongyan said that red spiders (leaf mites) are also particularly susceptible to contamination, so in the production process, we must always be careful not to let other insects enter the production workshop, "people also do not allow casual entry, such as people with allergies also have an impact on leaf mites." The person in charge of the workshop said that once the pollution situation is found, the workshop staff will immediately clean up the plant seedlings that are used as pest food, and then thoroughly clean and spray the contaminated workshop to ensure that there are no residual natural enemy insects and then start raising again.
Small insects guard agriculture and forestry
It is understood that China has been carrying out scientific research on insect predators since the end of the 1970s, and has been doing so for more than 40 years. According to the data, the largest natural enemy in China is the red-eyed bee, and other natural enemy insect species with more research and application include ladybugs, grasshoppers, flower bugs and so on.
According to the information provided by the Beijing Plant Protection Station, in 2019, 24 natural enemy products of 11 categories have been applied to the control of vegetable pests in Beijing, covering an area of 223,900 mu, which has played an important role in reducing the amount of pesticides.
Glass bottles raise ladybirds, and the pests in the bottles are the food of ladybirds. Beijing News reporter Yang Yijing photographed
Broadfield Pastoral Biotechnology Company's independent research and development of biological natural enemy control technology began in 2013, "We are the enterprise established by the North Vegetable Garden Organic Vegetable Company, because the North Vegetable Garden grows organic vegetables and cannot be sprayed with pesticides, so we are very concerned about biological control." Zhang Hongyan, general manager of Kuoye, said that at first, experts from scientific research institutes such as the Municipal Plant Protection Station would provide the base with some insect natural enemies to try, and found that the effect of eliminating pests was good, "We began to try to raise ourselves, after several years of development, now the scale has risen." ”
Last year, The company produced 30 billion new small pigtail mites per year, 50 million small flower bugs and smoke blind bugs in East Asia, 102 million heterochromatic ladybirds, and the largest number of small planted mites in Chile, with an annual output of 300 million heads.
After such a large number of insects are produced, how do they need to be preserved? Zhang Hongyan said that generally according to the order volume to produce insects, there is a need to collect, "like ladybugs, after the worm card is made, we have done a lot of experiments, can be stored for about a week, the hatching rate of eggs is no problem." These predatory mites of Pasteur and Chile can also be left for a period of time at a low temperature of 4 °C-8 °C after the finished product comes out. "The most vulnerable should be the East Asian small flower bugs and smoke blind bugs, which can be stored at most one night, so after collecting the packaging, they should be sent to the farmers and farmers who need it immediately," We transport insects are also express delivery, and ice cubes are used in the packaging to ensure the transportation environment of insects. ”
In summer, when the production of predator insects is at its peak throughout the year, workers work overtime every day to collect beneficial insects. Agriculture and forestry rely on these small bugs to eliminate pests, pieces of small bugs, bottles of small bugs, guarding the health of crops and trees.
Source: Beijing News