Early-season flood enhances native biological control agents in Wisconsin cranberry

Biological control is predicated on the concept that crop plants are protected when predators suppress herbivore populations. However, many factors, including concurrent crop protection strategies, may modify the effectiveness of a predator in a given agroecosystem. In Wisconsin commercial cranberry production, native biological control agents experience either an early spring pest-control flood, or a spring pesticide application. Is it possible that the pest control efficacy exhibited by the flood is in part due to releasing natural enemies, such as spiders and parasitoids, from a broad-spectrum insecticide application? To determine the potential compatibility between native biological control and cultural and chemical control methods, pest pressure was analyzed on cranberry marshes receiving either a spring flood or an insecticide treatment, and predation and parasitism of a key cranberry pest was compared between the two treatments.