Don't Spray Wasps! Using Polistes Paper Wasps for Pest Management in the Home Garden.
Abstract
Pest control poses a challenge to gardeners, especially those using organic practices. Polistes wasps are important predators of soft bodied pest insects, consuming 1000's per season. We investigated whether Polistes wasps were effective control agents in small organic gardens. We planted 8 garden plots with lettuce, cabbage, beans and tomatoes and established 8 Polistes dominulus nests in 4 of them. We did not observe any differences between the experimental and control plots in the abundance of pest insects, the extent of damage, or the weight of the plants at harvest. However, we did find that cabbage plants from plots with more wasps had less insect damage than plants from plots with fewer wasps. Although our study appears to demonstrate that Polistes wasps were not effective in controlling pests, the observation that wasp number influenced damage levels in cabbage suggests that, at least for that crop, there is a density of wasps that can be effective.
Don't Spray Wasps! Using Polistes Paper Wasps for Pest Management in the Home Garden.
Kirkhof Center KC19
Pest control poses a challenge to gardeners, especially those using organic practices. Polistes wasps are important predators of soft bodied pest insects, consuming 1000's per season. We investigated whether Polistes wasps were effective control agents in small organic gardens. We planted 8 garden plots with lettuce, cabbage, beans and tomatoes and established 8 Polistes dominulus nests in 4 of them. We did not observe any differences between the experimental and control plots in the abundance of pest insects, the extent of damage, or the weight of the plants at harvest. However, we did find that cabbage plants from plots with more wasps had less insect damage than plants from plots with fewer wasps. Although our study appears to demonstrate that Polistes wasps were not effective in controlling pests, the observation that wasp number influenced damage levels in cabbage suggests that, at least for that crop, there is a density of wasps that can be effective.