To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] asian lady bugs
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 19:23:57 -0400
In the piedmont area of North Carolina, the Asian Lady Bug population has
been on about a 10 year boom/bust cycle for a couple decades. Populations
slowly build for about seven years, then decline drastically for a couple
years and then rebuild. We are in the second year of a bust, so I expect
their population to start to build over the next couple years.
Even when we had very large numbers of them, I have never had them attack
figs, apples, or pears. I had thousands of them in my greenhouse during
the winter, and those winters I had no white fly, scale, or mealy bug
problems to contend with.