Cornell University researchers are no strangers to the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB). Peter Jentsch tells The Cornell Chronicle apple growers saw loses of 20% to 30% from damage during the 2012 growing season.
Jentsch, a Senior Extension Associate and Director of the Hudson Valley Research Laboratory in Highland, NY, is a part of a team rearing and deploying samurai wasps (Trissolcus japonicus) in 24 farms and 32 sites throughout New York to help control BMSB. The team also placed stink bug eggs around the perimeter of the research plots to determine of the wasps would attack them.
The Chronicle reports 70% of the wasps survived the release and wasps parasitized eggs placed at two of the sites.