Biological pest control beneficials

Biotic Controls Biological solutions to insect pest problems. For example, application of beneficial insects to control pest populations. 

Biological controls Using living organisms to control pests is called biological control. These controls include disease organisms such as Bacillus thuringiensis that infect insects as well as predatory or parasitic insects or mites. Many beneficial insects have been introduced from other countries to control imported pests and thousands of beneficial species are native to North. America. Several dozen species are... 

Many cultural control practices are thought to work on a variety of levels. Companion planting is generally thought of as a general cultural practice that lessens pest problems. In specific cases, the companion plants may attract beneficial insects, and so in a sense, are a biological control. Other plant companions may serve as a trap crop for pests—a physical method of pest management. Often it is the oldest methods that are least understood in terms of how and why they work. 

Another success in resistance management involves not just a single key pest species, but a whole complex of phytophagous arthropod pests of apple in the United States (39). It also focuses on resistance management of a number of beneficial arthropod predators and parasitoids that provide significant biological control of a variety of secondary pests on this crop. 

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