Beetles battle ready for pesky aliens
The alien invasive plant, pereskia (Barbados gooseberry) will hopefully soon battle to survive in Toti and surrounds, thanks to some tiny beetles.
Toti conservancy members, Gill van Wyk and Corinne Winson, together with support from Khumbuzile Luthuli and Bongani Nzama of the natural resources department of parks and recreation released batches of the pereskia flea beetle in patches of Barbados gooseberry found in the area on Friday and Saturday.
“I requested the beetles from the South African Sugarcane Research Institute (SASRI) about two months ago,” said Gill. “They didn’t have enough, so we had to wait for the SASRI to breed more and they finally arrived last week. I received nine containers with 10 beetles in each.”
SASRI is a world renowned agricultural research institute based at Mount Edgecombe, which provides a link between researchers and sugarcane farmers and offers a range of services including fertiliser advice, disease diagnoses and education courses.
“Pereskia is not only a pest, it is a very dangerous alien plant. We released the majority of the beetles in the Umgababa and Ilfracombe area. I have kept some to breed, so that we have a continuous supply in the future.”
The beetles are black with eight cream spots on their backs. They have large hind legs and are strong jumpers. They also fly. The larvae (young) are grub-like, growing to about one centimetre long and are yellow when small or grey when larger. Both the adults and larvae feed on the pereskia leaves and shoots and this will stunt the plant’s growth and eventually kill it off.
