Subject: Re: AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCHER

From: Floyd Catchpole <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 19:35:45 -0400

Hi Sepp;

I am quite confident that you will find predators, parasites and diseases
already at work on lepidopteran pests in Australia.  For example: try putting
posts in your fields with a 30 cm square piece of plywood nailed horizontally
on the top of each post.  Watch for wasps to make homes under these shelters,
and then monitor what the wasps eat (in N. America, it will be lots  of
caterpillars).  Perhaps boards of various sizes could be cheaply fastened to
existing fence posts around fields to see what works best.

You could also capture lepidopteran pests and attempt to culture diseases and
parasites from these captures.  In this manner, you are not introducing
(more) nonnative species into Australia with unknown consequences.  The
theory of island biogeography suggests that (on the average) one species will
become extinct for every species which is successfully introduced into an
area (island or continent).

 Good Luck.

Floyd Catchpole      Kansas State University, Biology Dep't., Ackert Hall,
Manhattan, KS 66506  USA     phone (913) 587-4630

"About 90% of our native flora is restricted to the stable habitats provided
by our original plant communities, so an understanding and stewardship of
such areas is critical if we are to carry forward into the future a
possibility of association with living things other than ourselves, a few
weeds, and cultivars." - Floyd Swink & Gerould Wilhelm.  Plants of the
Chicago
Region pp 42.