Biological Control of Pests The Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control (CIBC) in Bangalore with its Global network of research laboratories and field stations, is one of the most active, non-commercial research agencies engaged in pest control by setting natural predators against parasites. CIBC also serves as a clearing-house for the export and import up biological agents for pest control by world-wide. CIBC successfully used as a seed-feeding weevil, native to Mexico, to control the obnoxious parthenium weed, known to exert devious influence on agriculture and human health in both India and Australia. Similarly the Heyderabad-based Regional Research Laboratory (RRL), supported by CIBC, is now trying out an Argentinian weevil for the eradication of water hyacinth, another dangerous weed, which has become and nuisance in many parts of the world. According to Mrs. Kaiser Jamil of RRL, “The Argentinian weevil does not attack any other plant and a pair of adult bugs could destroy the weed in 4-5 days. CIBC is also perfecting the technique for breeding parasites that prey on ‘disapene scale’ insects - notorious defoliants of fruit trees in the US and India. How effectively biological control can be pressed into service is proved by the following examples. In the late 1960s, when Sri Lanka's flourishing coconut groves were plagued by leaf-mining hispides, a larva parasite imported from Singapore brought the pest under control. A natural predator indigenous to India, Neodumetia sangawani, was found useful in controlling the Rhodes grass-scale insect that was devouring forage grass in many parts of the US. By using Neochetina bruci, a beetle native to Brazil, scientists at Kerala Agricultural University freed a 12-kilometer long canal from the clutches of the weed Salvinia molesta, popularly called ‘African Payal’ in Kerala. About 30000 hectares of rice fields in Kerala are infested by this weed.
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