Littywood Farm is a family-run business in Stafford, United Kingdom growing soft fruit on 86 acres. Seventeen years ago the company started biological control through bees. The aim was: no more use of insecticides on their strawberries. Instead, controlling pests and diseases biologically as much as possible. Together with Royal Brinkman and Agrobío Littywood have made many great strides in recent years.
Littywood Farm has a robust integrated pest management plan with a focus on biological control. Using bumblebees to pollinate flowers and natural predators to tackle thrips. "Thrips is our biggest challenge in strawberries. They cause serious damage in terms of bronzing and making the fruit unmarketable", says Gabriel Slabbert, Production and Harvest Manager at Littywood Farm. Littywood Farm has been working with Royal Brinkman for many years especially when it comes to pollination by bumblebees and fighting pests and diseases with natural predators. In doing so, they choose to grow in a more sustainable way.
Walking the crop
Becky Durkin of Royal Brinkman advises Littywood Farm on biological crop protection. "I visit them every two weeks throughout the season, where we closely monitor how the predators establish in combination with the pest pressure. We discuss the pests and diseases seen and how to deal best with them", says Becky. The company uses two types of natural predators for the biological control of thrips, predatory mites and insects. They start with the predatory mite Cucumeris, a natural predator against thrips. This tiny predatory mite is used preventively and feeds on the eggs and first instar. They also use the predatory insect Orius Cold. Orius is effective on both larvea and adult thrips. Orius comes in 2 types, standard Orius and Orius Cold which is especially active at lower temperatures, therefore it's very useful for the early tunnels at Littywood Farm.
Labor-saving
Gabriel Slabbert: "For thrips control, we use a preventive schedule of Cucumeris supplemented with Orius. Cucumeris is applied by the UniMite Soft fruit. This bio-applicator scatters the Cucumeris evenly over the strawberry crop, exactly above the crop rows. The bio-applicator is attached to the front of a tractor, allowing us to drive in and out of the tunnels quickly and easily. The labour saving is great, in one run we can apply the Cucumeris to all 6 rows in the tunnel at the same time."
Thrips under control
The biological approach to thrips control is working very well. Thrips were under control last year with minimal damage. "Together with Royal Brinkman, Littywood has taken huge steps forward and in recent years we have improved together. Littywood Farm is now putting even more effort into biological control and want to take it to the next level".
For more information:
Royal Brinkman
[email protected]
www.royalbrinkman.com