Enhanced production of pink pineapple mealybug,Dysmicoccus brevipes (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae)

A mass rearing program was developed for the pink pineapple mealybug (PPM), Dymsicoccus brevipes (Cockerell) (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae), to provide host material for producing the encyrtid parasitoid Anagyrus ananatis (Gahan). PPM individuals produce honeydew that accumulates on heavily infested squash and entraps crawlers and older instars. A new protocol was tested to reduce accumulated honeydew with minimal mortality to PPM. Butternut and kobocha squash were placed in rearing containers and covered with coarse vermiculite (>2.36?mm diameter) after being infested with PPM. Use of vermiculite removed the honeydew from the squash surface. PPM produced using vermiculite were easily harvested from the host squash, but mealybugs produced on squash without vermiculite were embedded within the honeydew. When individual kobocha squash fruit were inoculated with 300–400 mature PPM adults (>0.6?mm length), about 700 adult PPM (appropriate for A. ananatis production) were produced for each dollar value (USA) of squash fruit (i.e., ～1500?PPM per individual squash).