A frequent presence in cartoons and known as a cute insect, ladybugs can also be very useful in combating pests in agriculture. Carnivorous, they can feed on aphids, mealybugs and other invaders that attack crops.
Based on this potential of ladybugs, the city of Belo Horizonte created a biofactory that creates and distributes the insects. The main objective is to enhance the biological control of pests in green areas and urban gardens in the city.
According to Dany Silvio Amaral, project coordinator and director of environmental management at the Belo Horizonte environment department, as they feed on parasites, ladybugs work as an alternative to the use of pesticides and poisons, enhancing organic and agroecological agriculture.
The initial motivation for the project came when the ficus trees in the capital of Minas Gerais were infested by whiteflies. Half of the ficus had to be cut down due to infection between 2013 and 2014. They started to think about possible solutions to the problem.
In 2017, a French initiative for biological pest control in gardens using ladybugs aroused the interest of professionals from the BH environmental department.
“We thought it wouldn’t be too difficult to do the same thing here. It was a good alternative for biologically controlling whiteflies on ficus and also helping with urban agriculture and community gardens, which are very strong in the city”, says the director.
Created in 2018, the biofactory is located in the Mangabeiras park. From 2019 to the end of 2021, around 80,000 ladybugs were distributed. The goal for the year 2022 is to distribute 50,000 insects.
Amaral, who is an agronomist and a doctor in entomology, a specialty that studies insects, says the idea is to work with ladybugs that are already present in the city’s fauna. The insects were collected in the wild and taken to the laboratory, where they are monitored for proper reproduction and development.
Part of the production is kept in the biofactory, for the maintenance of the process. The remainder is intended for interested parties still in the larval stage, for use in biological control.
“They are distributed in the larval stage for two reasons. The adult can fly, you release it there on the plant, it can leave and you can’t control it. In addition, the larva is also much more voracious. develop, they can eat 40 to 50 aphids in a day”, explains Amaral.
Any resident of Belo Horizonte can request the insects through the city’s services portal. The person then receives a free kit with about 30 ladybird larvae and instructions on how to handle the animals and on the environmental importance of biological control.
Agronomist Ingrid Araújo is the creator of a start-up that produces urban gardens in Belo Horizonte in an agroecological way. She assembles vegetable gardens in boxes for customers and also does maintenance on house plans, buildings, restaurants and commercial establishments.
Ingrid discovered the biofactory through teachers, when looking for alternatives to the use of pesticides in the treatment of plants. Since 2019, she has been using ladybugs to fight aphids on vegetables such as kale and arugula.
“It’s an easy solution and it’s still beautiful, people like to see ladybugs in their vegetable garden. It also helps that people know the stages of the ladybug. Some even kill them when they’re in the larvae stage, thinking it’s some other bug” , she says.
Administrative assistant Helena Brito ordered the ladybugs to be used in her own home garden. According to her, the insects were efficient in solving the problem of aphids that attacked the vegetables.
In addition, she says that another positive point of the kits is the didacticism, which makes it possible for anyone to be able to use the ladybugs and understand how biological control works.
“The booklet they send is very explanatory, even for laymen on the subject. Everyone can understand how the process works and also the importance of the biofactory for environmental balance”, she says.
In addition to distributing ladybugs, the project also works to increase the population of insects, donating seeds of plants that attract them. Some examples of these plants are fennel, corn, sunflower and fennel.
“The ladybug is very sensitive to the environment, so the more urbanized the environment, the less biodiversity it has, the less ladybug we will have. In the past, houses had more backyards and more gardens, the city had more green spaces and that was reducing in the urbanization process”, says Dany Amaral.
To enhance its actions, the biofactory also develops environmental education projects, visiting schools and receiving students. According to the director, the objective is to spread the environmental importance of ladybugs, biological control and the increase of biodiversity in the city.
Source: Folha
