Biocontrol agents agriculture
Here more intensive testing is undertaken towards satisfying the rigorous permitting requirements.įinally, when permitting is completed, agents are released at a few sites, often in bags to prevent their escape, to observe their behavior in the wild. The quarantined greenhouse facility at the USDA Agricultural Research Service Laboratory in Albany, CA, is the only such laboratory west of the Mississippi, and it serves the entire West. The few agents that seem like good prospects are then brought to a special quarantined greenhouse facility in the US. Tests consist of isolating the agent with the plant being tested, and the agent either uses the plant or dies. Agents are brought to a testing greenhouse, where they are exposed to a wide range of other plants from the proposed introduction site (California, for instance) to see if they can use that plant. Researchers begin in the home range of the plant, and study which pathogens and insects affect its vigor there. For instance, the 2004 introduction of the Diorhabda beetle on tamarisk ( see article in Cal-IPC News, Fall 2004) was the culmination of 25 years of research. The testing and results must be reviewed and approved by a national review board, and the entire process takes years. Researchers must conduct extensive host-specificity testing to determine that the imported agent will not damage other plants in the introduced range, either native plants or plants that are important in agriculture, silviculture or horticulture.