Building a new predatory mite from potential to product

The discovery of the predator by Taro Saito, Senior Research Technician at Vineland, was described in a previous article, "Plant researchers on the hunt for new biocontrol agents" (Greenhouse Grower March 2020).

Anystis mites are commonly called whirligig mites, because of their characteristic random zig-zag searching behavior. In Japan, they are know as leaf guardian mites. This is also an apt name, as naturally occurring populations of this mite are considered important natural enemies of pests in crops worldwide, such as orchards in the United Kingdom, vineyards in Canada, cereals in Russia, tea fields in China, and organic potato field in New Zealand.

Despite their good performance in the field, Anystis was never commercialized as a biocontrol agent, because no one could figure out how to economically mass rear this predator due to its cannibalistic behavior. Taking on this challenge, the research team led by Saito has successfully maintained a colony at Vineland for more than 10 years and scaled it up into a cost-effective mass rearing system.

Predation Capacity

Anystis is an extremely generalist predator. We often joke that it tries to eat everything that it runs into. Indeed, we have observed it to attack many common greenhouse pests such as thrips, spider mites, whiteflies, and aphids. It not only feeds on the vulnerable immature stages, but also manages to catch more mobile adults. For example, see this video where it attacks whitefly adults. We have seen it prey on pests that are not well controlled by biocontrol, such as echinothrips, mealybugs, soft scale, and some of the more challenging aphid species, including root aphids. Finally, it feeds on pollen, and several supplemental food sources such as Ephestia eggs and Artemia cysts.

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Source: Greenhouse Grower