A Plant’s Best Friend: Agriculturally-Friendly Insects

Though we’re in the business of eradicating pests in our homes, insects in general aren’t all bad. There are actually numerous of insects that are good for our agricultural sector. As we may have mentioned before, there are bugs that are essential to pollination and eradicating more harmful insects. You can even say that they work like pest control services sometimes!

In fact, there are bugs that seemingly ‘protect’ certain plants by feeding on the other insects that feed on these plants. Don’t believe us? Here are a few examples:

Damsel Bugs

These bugs are soft-bodied and winged terrestrial predators that use their forelegs to catch and hold their prey. They are very helpful in agriculture because of their tendency to predate on different types of crop pests. Damsel bugs feed on alphids, small caterpillars, leafhoppers, thirps and other unwelcomed bugs. Usually they would crowd over fields of legumes like alfalfa, but they are diverse can be found in other crops as well as non-cultivated areas. They love to catch insects that are smaller than them and would often cannibalize on each other when food is unavailable.

Ground Beetles

Ground beetle larvae and adults love to eat smaller animals. They particularly love eating slugs, snails, cutworms, cabbage maggots and other pests that are a nuisance to your garden or land. Ground beetles are capable of eating over 50 caterpillars! Most ground beetles are only active at night and they would emerge from their hiding places which are under rocks and logs. Their looks are rather diverse in shape and colour; most adults are glossy and black while some are iridescent, green or yellow and orange.

Lacewings

Lacewings are insects from the big family of. They are delicate insects and are characterized by their usually bright green or greenish-brown bodies with compound eyes that are conspicuously golden. Due to their highly aggressive and cannibalistic nature, they are spread around and separated while they are eggs. This makes it easy to breed and spread throughout a vast land of crops or plants. Their favourite homes are angelica coreopsis, cosmos and sweet alyssum.

Lady Beetles

Lady bugs or lady birds come from the coccinellidae family of small beetles. They are known as very useful insects due to their appetite for aphids or scale insects. Usual pests that can be evident in gardens, agricultural fields, orchards and similar places can be easily terminated when colonies of lady beetles take shelter on these areas.

Minute Pirate Bugs

As the name suggests, Minute Pirate bugs are small and obscure insects that feed on other small insects such as spider mites and insect eggs. They would cut a hole in their prey then pump saliva into in order for them to drink the content. Such vicious creatures indeed, but these small insects have been a big help to the woodlands.

With all the insects aforementioned, it’s not hard to believe that each creature has their own role in this world. We here are TOPBEST also have our role too, and that’s to provide you with pest control services! If you’re having any problems with unwelcome termites, insects, and other pests in your home, do not hesitate to call us for a free consultation.