The regional director of the Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG) of the Maule Region, Fernando Pinochet, together with the Mayor of Sagrada Familia, Martín Arriagada, the Seremi of Agriculture, Luis Verdejo, and a team of SAG professionals released 44 copies of  megarhyssa nortoni in a property located in the commune of Sagrada Familia.

It is a large wasp that functions as a biological controller for a forest pest called Sirex noctilio. As a biological controller, megarhyssa nortoni  it has the characteristic of parasitizing the larvae of Sirex noctilio, controlling their dissemination very effectively.

Forest damage

The pine wood wasp sirex noctilio, corresponds to a plague of European origin, which was detected for the first time in Chile during 2001. Its attack causes the death of the pines due to the fact that the females place their eggs inside the trunk, together with a toxic substance produced by them, which kills the trees.

“Sirex is a pest that since 2015 has been doing a lot of damage in the Maule region; For this reason, SAG and the private company in alliance have been developing and releasing this biological controller with actions that have been quite successful in the region; therefore, we can say that the plague is being controlled ”; This was pointed out by the Seremi of Agriculture, who highlighted the coordinated work carried out around this forestry program.

Regarding the importance of this release, the regional director of SAG pointed out that “This release included 30 female and 14 male Megarhyssa nortoni. This biological controller for the Sirex noctilio is part of a set of controllers, but it is the one that has given the best results ”.

Non-invasive technique

The Agricultural and Livestock Service has a biological control program for sirex noctilio with 3 natural enemies of the plague: the nematode deladenus siricidicola and the wasps megarhyssa nortoni e Ibalia leucospoides.

This biological control technique is friendly to the environment, non-invasive, does not affect the population and avoids the use of chemical products for pest control, and also has a permanent effect in the release areas, since the insects establish and reproduce in the middle.

The mayor of the commune, for his part, who accompanied the agricultural authorities in this activity, was calm and grateful; “We are reassured that in this sector of Los Quillayes we are going to have a regulation on the damage that wood may have due to Sirex; this is very important for what our commune is growing especially with these forests, and the idea is to continue taking care of them ”.

Production insectary

Given the need to have breeding of this type of wasps, the regional SAG built a breeding insectarium for these controllers in Parral, which began operations in 2012 and to date has produced 3.682 specimens of megarhyssa and 13.369 copies of Ibalia, which have been released in 196 pine plantations affected by Sirex noctilius.

The advantages of the use of these controllers are given by their ability to disperse at the field level, locate the pest and control it without the use of agrochemicals that produce negative side effects to the environment.