Know your garden friends- Predators, assassins, and killer insects

The author is a graduate of Agriculture at the University of the Philippines.A teacher at the Visayas State University, Baybay City, Leyte.

Keywords: Insects. Beneficial. Harmful. Pests Cultural Methods. Pesticides. Natural Control Agents.

Act Wisely!

“Protect predators of pests, pollinators, our environment, ourselves from the misuse of pesticides. Identify the organism first and then if it is a pest of importance, choose the least toxic way to manage it.”

Quote from Wayne S. Johnson and Jessica Graham (June 2008)

Worldwide distribution of known organisms in each group

• Insects-950,000
• Plants-270,000
• Fungi-72,000
• Fishes-19,000
• Birds-9,000
• Mammals-4,000

Introduction

Don't be alarmed if you see loopers, flyers and crawlers in your beautiful garden. Those flying objects and crawlers are not all pests. In fact if you look closely, some of those flyers and crawlers are beneficial insects. They help you control the population of harmful insects in your garden by acting as predators, assassins and insect killers.

Insects are the most diverse group of an organism with around 950,000 species described in the animal kingdom. They assume a critical role in both ecology and human society as a vital link to food webs. Served as pollinators and in the recycling of nutrients for increasing productivity of agricultural crops, conversely, insects have devastating consequences as agricultural pests and bears diseases. Insects vary in size and forms but their ability to adapt to extreme temperatures and altitudes makes them superior over other organisms.

The animal kingdom is divided into phyla (sing. phylum), considered the most diverse is Phylum Arthropoda. Under this phylum are six distinct Classes, namely, Class Crustacea, Class Diplodea, Class Arachnida, Class Chilopoda, Class Insecta, and Class Merostomata. However, in terms of numbers and diversity, Class Arachnida and Class Insecta bears the bulk of 950,000 known invertebrates in the Animal Kingdom widely referred to as "insects ", but the arachnids (eg. spiders ) are not insects, they have four pairs of legs while true insects (eg. Honeybees) have three pairs of legs only. Nevertheless, the so-called "insects" are further grouped as beneficial or harmful insects and here's the rub, the harmful insects (pests) out numbers the beneficial insects. But, don't be alarmed, though outnumbered, they're the most effective nature's insecticide.

The common insects in your garden

The first reaction of most gardeners, if they see insects in their gardens, are pests and immediately apply insecticide to get rid of troublesome insects without knowing first the type of insects present. Spraying of insecticide also kills beneficial insects and this my led to resurgence of harmful insects as the population of natural control agents is lowered Furthermore, the use of chemical as control agents may threaten human health as residues are left on the food crops and could potentially contaminate our water resources if applied enlarged amount.

Knowing what are the insects present in your garden before any control measures done, is basic to the effective reduction of harmful insects in your garden. Some of these common insects found in your garden is shown below.

Do you Know ?

Can aphids have offspring without mating?

That Assassin bug inject toxic saliva that paralyzes and liquefies victim's tissue before feeding?

That ladybird beetle's larvae feed for three weeks, eating 10 to 50 aphids per day?

Scroll to Continue

Cryptids, An Evergreen List

How to Make Money With Little or No Effort

Will Round 3 Happen?

That honeybees communicate with each other using the " dance " language?

That ants have two stomachs, one to digest its own food, the other to feed other ants?

That the larvae of periodic cicada live about 13 to 17 years below ground, but as an adult two weeks to 40 days only?

One maggot of Syrphid fly can consume 400 to 500 aphids in its lifetime? They have 3 to 7 generations per year.

What are beneficial and harmful insects

Insects are important components to our world as they are sources of food to other animals including man, they aid in the pollination or reproduction of food crops and they have inspired humans with their beauty and ingenuity, and even worshiped in ancient religion. Therefore, don't be alarmed if yo see insects in your garden, not all insects are harmful, in fact, some of them help toned down pest population Shown below is some common insects usually observed in your garden, they are classified as beneficial or harmful insects, try to familiarize with them and understand how they affect your crops. If you can secure an illustrated guide to common insects in your area will be most advantageous. A list of examples is shown below.

Examples of Beneficial and Harmful insects in your garden

What are garden pests :

These are garden insects that destroy your plants. As insect pests, they destroy roots, bore tunnels in the stem, stunt growth, blemishes flowers and leaves, deformed fruits and above all make yours product unpalatable and unfit for market. The damage done by garden pests can be arbitrarily categorized as a) the fruit and flower destroyer, b) the leaf and root cutters, c) the stem borers and gall makers, d) the flower and flower buds destroyer, and e)seedling feeding pests. The list of insects in each category is not absolute, in fact, some of these garden pests are present all year round especially those having multiple plant hosts. therefore, eradicating them will be difficult. In this case, a robust control measure should be planned prior to planting.

a) The fruit blemishers and flower destroyer

The following insects are considered pests that damaged flowers and fruits such as:

Borers, Mealybugs, worms

petal cutters, Mites

Beetles, Japanese, Scales

Aphids, and Thrips

Bug, Squash and Whiteflies

b) The leaf and root cutters

The following insects are considered pests such as:

The foliage eaters, Sawfly

Armyworms, Tomato hornworm

Leafcutters, Weevils

Corn earworms, Grasshoppers

Midges.Aphids, and Cicadas

c) The stem suckers and gall makers

The following insects are considered pests in stems of such as:

Aphids, Bugs, Squash

Cicadas, Mealybugs

Mites, Scales, Beetles, Japanese

Thrips and Whiteflies

d) The flower and flower buds destroyer

The following insects are pests to flowers and flower buds such as:

Aphids, Bugs

Mealybugs, Scales

Thrips, Whiteflies

Weevils, Corn borers

Grasshoppers, Corn Earworms

and Tomato Hornworms

e)The root feeding pests

The following insects are considered pests to roots such as:

Root feeding insects,

Crickets, Cutworms

White grubs, and Cicadas

Do you know ?

BUTTERFLY vs MOTH

• thin antennas ⁄ feathery
• wings closed at rest ⁄ wings often at rest
• pupa-chrysalis ⁄ cocoon
• diurnal-active day ⁄ nocturnal-active night

Methods how to attract beneficial insects in your garden

Predators, assassins, killers and prey

These are your garden allies that will help you in controlling harmful insects the natural way. Considered as nature's own pesticide is more economical and environmentally friendly. Though their numbers are limited but they helped toned down pest population in a mutualistic way. Plants and insects have co-evolved over 300 million years ago when flowering plants(The Angiosperms) start to dominate the plant world. They are the first inhabitants of this world. Under the mutualistic condition, plants and insects co-exist, whatever damage imposed by insects to plants, plants was able to outgrow the damage. For instance, insects are not destructive to plants at all times only a certain part of their life cycle they do damage to plants example their larval stage. In the adult stage many insects help plants by serving as pollinators or promoting sexual reproduction, the plants get pollinated as requisite for species survival for generations to come, in return the insects gets its food(honey, nectar, etc,), a place to live among others.This mutualistic understanding have persisted for millions of years and has been encoded in their genome to be expressed in their behavioral response to each other.Indeed, plants, predators, assassin's. killer insects and prey are one in the insect food web. Man does not take this relationship seriously in his desire to produce more food for his own kind. Methods used by man altered this relationship (eg. use of pesticides) which created more problems rather than solving it. Some suggestion to keep beneficial insects in your garden ( selected techniques) is presented here(Table).

Pollen bearing and Nectar producing plants

Pollen Bearing

Snowdrop

Crocus

Dandelion

Apple

Strawberry

Coltsfoot

Grape Hyacinth

Mustard

Squash family

Rasberry/Blueberry

Nectar Producing

Snowdrop

Crocus

Dandelion

Strawberry

Grape Hyacinth

Mustard

Squash Family

Raspberry/Blueberry

Clover

Alfalfa

Queen's Ann Lace

Source: Heidi Minga

Do you know ?

• that red ants are not true ants but a kind of wasp?It is also known as "cow killer" it can sting humans and animals
• that damselfly fly at the speed of 30 kph?
• Have that cockroaches their skeleton outside their bodies?
• that butterfly taste using their feet?
• that grasshoppers have five eyes but no ears?instead, they have a special organ called tympana