12 Mass Production, Storage, Shipment and

Release of Natural Enemies

J.C. van Lenteren^1 and M.G. Tommasini^2

(^1) Laboratory of Entomology, Wageningen University, PO Box 8031, 6700 EH

Wageningen, The Netherlands;^2 CRPV (Centro Ricerche Produzioni Vegetali), Via

Vicinale Monticino 1969, 47020 – Diegaro di Cesena (FC), Italy

Introduction

Since the beginning of this century, the
mass production of natural enemies has
been considered as a means of improving
biological control programmes, especially
those based on inundative and seasonal
inoculative releases. For general informa-
tion on mass production and quality con-
trol of insects and other arthropods, we
refer the reader to Morrison and King
(1977), King and Morrison (1984), Singh
(1984), Singh and Moore (1985), van
Lenteren (1986a) and various chapters in
this book. For mass production related to
commercially produced natural enemies,
we refer the reader to van Lenteren (1986b),
van Lenteren and Woets (1988), Nicoli et al.

(1994) and Bolckmans (1999). We shall not

discuss the question of how to obtain a

good stock colony to start a mass produc-

tion, because this issue is addressed in

Chapters 1, 6 and 7. In this chapter, we

shall briefly summarize developments in

the mass rearing of natural enemies for

commercial biological control during the

20th century.

Mass production of beneficials is a ‘skil-

ful and highly defined processing of an

entomophagous species through insectary

procedures which results in economical pro-

duction of millions of beneficial insects’

(Finney and Fisher, 1964). This is true for

most mass-rearing programmes, but there

are important exceptions where mass pro-

duction seems to be a fairly simple process.

© CAB International 2003. Quality Control and Production of Biological Control Agents:
Theory and Testing Procedures (ed. J.C. van Lenteren) 181

Abstract

Mass production of natural enemies started in the 1940s and quickly developed thereafter. These devel-
opments were mainly triggered by trying to economize rearing and making biological control more com-
petitive when compared with other pest-control methods. Storage of natural enemies is only possible for
very short periods, with the exception of species for which it is known how to start and terminate dia-
pause. Initially, the collection, shipment and release of biological control agents were rather amateurish,
but enormous progress has also been made in this area. Many natural-enemy species can now be pro-
duced at competitive costs, resulting in increased use of biological pest control.