Project Number: 6629-22000-009-59
Project Type: Reimbursable

Start Date: Aug 01, 2008
End Date: Jun 12, 2009

Objective:
Develop safe and effective biological control agents for Waterhyacinth.

Approach:
Receive or hand carry shipments from overseas, develop rearing methods to colonize insects in quarantine, conduct risk assessment analysis in quarantine to determine suitability for safe biological control introductions. Suitability will be determined by describing the agents physiological host range using an array of choice and no-choice feeding, oviposition, and development trials on North American plant species, analyze data and petition regulatory agencies for release permit, establish and evaluate agents in field sites around Florida using long-term permanent plots, repeated releases and sampling, and specialized caging and insecticide check methods.