Easy, Fun and Organic Citrus Pest Management using Ladybugs

 Organic pest management techniques are easy, educational, and can be a fun experience for adults and kids. Releasing Ladybugs (aka Vedalia beetles) is one of the many ways we, at the Life Science Program at the IROEC, keep our Living Classroom and citrus orchard healthy.  Releasing Ladybugs on our 180 tree Citrus Orchard generously donated by Grifith Farms will help by adding beneficial insects that naturally cutback the amount of harmful bugs like aphids and varieties of scale.  This technique doesn't use pesticides that harm other plants and won't depress our local ecology by killing other beneficial insects.  Kids also get super excited to get involved; to see, touch, and experience Ladybugs in action!  Even California's citrus history and our 1889 importation of the Vedalia Beetle to combat Scale has proven that it's,

 "applied ecology established the practicality of biologic control making it the preferred pest control method of the Entomological Society of America" (1).   

In an effort to bring more diversity into our orchard and help combat some pests we are dealing with (cotton cushion bug, mealy bug and red scale) we ordered those sweet little Ladybugs and this is the process in which we took to bring them to their new home: 

Get your Ladybugs from your local organic nursery or online.  Once they arrive place them in a refrigerator.  Placing them in the refrigerator encourages them to go into a dormant state, utilizing their protein stores from the rich diet they were given before shipment.  Some Ladybugs will survive underground, under the snow for months at a time!

While we wait, we gather our WWOOFers.  They're usually pretty close by eating Kale or reading a guide on permaculutre.  Make sure they're well fed, rested, and happy.  

Once your Ladybugs and WWOOFers are ready, head on out to your garden, in our case, the Orchard.  You'll need a watering pale, scissors, good shoes and your Ladybugs.  

 (Running in an orchard, dodging ripe oranges, covered in Ladybugs, and with the bright lights of Orange County make the experience feel like a dream.  A bit surreal but super fun!)    

Release your Ladybugs in the evening and spread them over the course of several days.  So about 1/3 of your supply of bugs Monday, 1/3 on Wednesday, 1/3 on Friday.  Something like that.  You also want to spread your Ladybugs out depending on the size of your space.  We have about 2 acres and ordered about 4,500 ladybugs, spreading them out every 6 trees for each day.  

To get ready, cut a small slit in your bag of Ladybugs and pinch it closed.  They come out fast so be ready and careful not to crush any.  Lightly water each tree or space where Ladybugs will be.  Water will help them recover after a long travel and hibernation.  

Here's where the good shoes come in.  Water the tree, release a small amount of bugs, then hurry to the next tree.  Once you let go of the pinched bag they crawl out non-stop.  Avoid re-pinching and killing ladybugs by hurrying to the next tree! 

Continue that process over the course of several trees until you've used about 1/3 of your supply.    

Vedalia beetle attacking the cotton cushion scale

biocontrol.ucr.edu

(1) Caltagirone, L. E., and R. L. Doutt. "The history of the vedalia beetle importation to California and its impact on the development of biological control." Annual Review of Entomology 34.1 (1989): 1-16.