Biocontrol measures that helped Australian farmers control a serious dryland weed for 20 years may at last benefit New Zealand.

Our small but hardy honey bees are under siege from a range of pests and diseases.

Release of a type of parasitic wasp is proposed as a biological control agent to combat a psyllid - plant louse - that attacks tomatoes, potatoes, capsicums and tamarillos

New Zealand farmers and growers are one step closer to accessing new, improved technologies and products to keep them internationally competitive.

Like a martial art, sustainable and smart pest and disease management relies on understanding opponents’ strengths and weaknesses and using these against them, says Charles Merfield of Lincoln University’s biological husbandry unit (BHU).

Many pests in New Zealand continue to be managed with poor understanding of their bionomics and impacts, warns the abstract of a paper published this month in the Journal of the Royal Society.

A recent study from the Bio-Protection Research Centre has found that pasture grasses with beneficial micro-organisms are less attractive to soil-dwelling insect pests.

LIVE BUGS, the nutrient budgeting tool Overseer and details of the country’s worst pasture pests were the highlights of AgResearch’s presence at the recent field days in Waikato.

The world is becoming a smaller place, with increased travel, tourism, trade and immigration. And because of that, New Zealand is at far greater risk of facing bio-security threats than ever before.

A NATIVE fly, Ostenia robusta, is being assessed as a possible biocontrol for grass grub after an unprecedented find of its larvae predating the pasture pest last spring.