August Meeting - Organic Pest Control

Our August meeting was on "organic pest control", given by Mrs Rae, ably assisted by her husband Dr Rae.  The talk focused in particular on a number of biological controls, using examples such as nematodes to control slugs (always of interest to Hurst Greeners, gardening on  clay), and parasitic biological controls for cabbage whites on brassicas.

One of the very informative and useful pieces of information was that biological controls are not meant as preventative measures, in order to stop an infection happening in the first place, but are for treating any infestations as they initially require the pest to be present in order to be effective.  These biological controls limit any infestation from becoming a massive outbreak by creating a more harmonious equilibrium between the pest and the control species; at many garden centres that sell these products, you would be forgiven for thinking that nemotodes (or other species) should be introduced to prevent the pest, and if you bought on this basis you would waste quite a bit of money.  The biological control species needs to feed on the pest, and will simply starve to death if there are none there to start with!