Koppert has been honoured at the 2023 Bernard Blum Awards at the Annual Biocontrol Industry Meeting.  The bronze award is for its biological product Nezapar, parasitic wasps Trissolcus basalis which prevent and provide light curative control of the Southern green stink bug, Nezara viridula.

Koppert’s director operations Peter Couwels said: This gives greenhouse growers finally access to a biological way of controlling this increasing greenhouse pest in Northwest Europe and other parts of the world.”   

The Southern green stink bug is a highly polyphagous feeder that attacks many important food crops. It is believed to have originated in Ethiopia but is now distributed throughout almost all tropical and sub-tropical areas and continues to spread into temperate areas where it is mainly found in greenhouses. Coming from a tropical climate, climate change ensures these highly destructive bugs (will) present a growing problem for growers in an increasing range of crops in areas with a moderate climate. Nezapar offers growers a natural solution that takes care of a serious problem that could only be solved by chemical pest control until now. 

“The parasitic wasps and their capacity to parasitize, thus impacting the development of Nezara, has been described in research papers for some time. What we have achieved now is scaling-up the rearing of Trissolcus basalis to viable commercial quantities,” says product manager Tim Bossinga. “When growers find a cluster of Nezara eggs, they will see that the eggs parasitized by Trissolcus change from a cream colour to black after 10-12 days. The newly hatched wasps emerge from the stink bug eggs and proceed to parasitize more stink bug eggs, and so the process is continuously repeated. It’s a powerful biological solution for this increasingly prevalent greenhouse bug.”

Nezapar is at its best when used in truly preventative control; having Trissolcus guarding the crop before Nezara enters is key.  

Trials have been successfully conducted with the cooperation of growers in Spain, France, Hungary, the Netherlands and Belgium where stink bug infestations are increasingly common in greenhouses.

Source:  Koppert  October 23, 2023 news release