I am looking to raise and keep constant stock of lacewings for serious spidermite damage on a few species of trees and shrubs at my farm. I can get them through mail but not consistently so want to raise them myself as a treatment and also as a prevention method. Has anyone tried raising them? the bits i have been reading note diet formulas but always seem to mention XX generations and die off. Would feeding live food work for this? i also read they like eating aphids for cultures. but would live flightless fruit flies and/or hatching crickets work? they are easy for me to keep stock, aphids not so much. Thanks for any suggestions.
Thanks. I have considered them as well, and prefer them as they dont seem to disperse so much. But the problem is i cant find them locally, need to import. i am willing to do that and go through all the paperwork needed to import it legally, but i couldn't do that weekly, so I will still need to raise them myself. Do you have any tips or tricks on non-live diet for either lacewing or spider mite? I have read some spider mites will hibernate. would it be possible to refrigerate eggs or even mites to preserve for later use? I hope to do weekly or bi-weekly applications on an area about 1 acre in size all tallied together. i need so many now as it is dry season and time for annual crops like greens, and spider mites are destroying them right now. so much so i am going to replant the entire crop and compost whats growing now. But i am not going to plant it until i have cultures running and can secure the crops through harvest. Thanks again :)
