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Beneficial Insect Identification is important to the health of your herb garden

Learn to properly identify an insect so you will recognize the beneficial insects in your herb garden environment. Many naturally occurring predators and parasites of unwanted pests are found in herb gardens. In nature these various bugs help keep the garden pests under control. A small number of pests in the garden will encourage those beneficial garden insects to stay and multiply. Some of the beneficial insects are:

Assassin bug - Reduviidaye - The assassin bug feeds mainly on aphids, caterpillars, Colorado potato beetles, Japanese beetles, leafhoppers, and Mexican bean beetles.

Damsel bug - Nabidae - The damsel bug feeds on aphids, leafhoppers, mites, and caterpillars.

Big-eyed bug - Lygaeidae - Big-eyed bugs feed on aphids, caterpillar eggs and larvae, immature bugs, leafhoppers, and spider mites.

Predacious stink bug - Pentatomidae - Predacious stink bugs feed on potato beetles and various caterpillar larvae.

Syrphid fly larvae - Syrphidae - Fly larvae of this species feed on aphids and mealybugs.

Lady beetle - Hippodamia convergens - The lady bug feeds mainly on aphids and other soft-bodied insects, such as mealybugs and spider mites.

Green lacewing larvae - Chrysopa carnea - Lacewing larvae, known as aphid lions, feed on insect eggs, aphids, spider mites, thrips, leafhopper nymphs, and small caterpillar larvae. Adult lacewings are not predacious.

Predatory mites - Phytoseiulus persimilus and several other species feed on many mite pests, including the two-spotted spider mite.

Trichogramma wasp - Trichogrammatidae - This tiny wasp attacks eggs of more than 200 pest species, including cutworms, corn borers, corn earworms, armyworms, codling moths, and cabbage moths. Release time is critical for their effectiveness since they only attack pest eggs.

Encarsia formosa - Encyrtidae - The greenhouse whitefly is prey for this wasp in third and fourth larval stage when Encarsia lay their eggs inside the whitefly scale.

It is very important to learn the skill of beneficial insect identification. Your herb garden will thrive with the help of some of the above beneficial insects.

Thomas Kueny, Publisher - http://www.growing-herbs.com