The PCS (Proefcentrum voor Sierteelt) is a research station dedicated to the cultivation of ornamental plants, located in Destelbergen (Belgium). For over 20 years, a large number of researches have been conducted in the area of crop protection, with both pesticides and biological control agents. For the prevention of pest resistance to various products, the use of beneficial insects has become an important part of a sustainable crop protection strategy. Marc Vissers, coordinator of indoor plants department routinely uses predatory mites against thrips, whiteflies and spidermites and OrnaProtect against aphids. Marc Vissers: “When trials are conducted with predatory mites or pesticides, you must try to spray as little as possible with other agents. Similarly, in our side effects trials with pesticides, where the impact of products on the predatory mites is tested, we cannot spray other products, which would mean the end of the trial. That is why we are very pleased with parasitoids of OrnaProtect. They are not a miracle solution to all the problems of aphids on all plant species, but allow good control of several species of aphids in several crops. On these crops, we no longer need to spray aphicide and predatory mites remain active. It is for these reasons that I recommend to ornamental growers using OrnaProtect, and not just to those who already use biological control but also to the others: they have only a limited number of active substances and as long as they do not need to spray chemicals, no resistance against these products develops. In this way, they can reserve a part of their insecticides interventions to pests more difficult to control as mealybugs, whiteflies or thrips.
