soldier fly larvae in West Australia.

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by gasha1, Oct 21, 2007.

  1. gasha1

    gasha1 New Member

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    Are soldier fly larvae available in West Australia.Can a continuous system be started using larvae?Help will be appreciated.Gasha1. :) :)
     
  2. gasha1

    gasha1 New Member

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    soldier fly larvae appear in compost bins.

    The larvae appear in compost bins all over the east coast of Australia.Has anyone seen them Appear in West Australia?
     
  3. PappaMike

    PappaMike New Member

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    SF larvae in WA

    Hi Gasha1,

    Yep, they definitely are here in WA (I'm in Bunbury).

    I killed one of the nastiest "worms" the other day, thinking "By Jupiter, this is the most ugly bastard I've ever seen in my garden!" Even had a few goose bumps as I killed the thing, all the while thinking what it might have done to the cabage plant from which I picked it (actually, I got in lying passively in the pot).

    Now before you think I'm a "bug fobic", think again. I just don't trust any strangers to my garden!

    To my disgust, I discovered today that I actually killed a friend! :shock: Gosh, may the poor bugger R.I.P.! Next time I'll know!

    Cheers,
    PM
     
  4. Ojo

    Ojo Junior Member

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    huh, looks like they can pollinate too.
    https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/resea ... ?Bu_Id=157
    descibes a collector
    https://www.cals.ncsu.edu/waste_mgt/smit ... er_fly.htm
    pdf file has image of a collector
    https://www.rsnz.org/publish/nzjz/1976/18.pdf

    this is what happened to me this year, 6 fruit trees (5 citrus varieties and a peach), not one piece of fruit on anything. Very disenchanting.
    https://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/28/4858/
    'Silence of the bees'
    https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/podcasts.html
     
  5. Jackie K

    Jackie K Junior Member

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    Yep!! They are up here too. However, I see "farming" them as impractible. It would be necessary to bug proof your bug farm to stop the adults flying away after the larvae have done their job on the compost and matured into beetles. Worms are far more efficient at converting waste to castings, less work involved, and generally like to stay where they are put as long as they are fed and the position is not too hot or wet for them. I have the greatest respect for those tireless uncomplaining toilers. But I am glad to see the soldier beetles roaming in search of nasties in my veg garden. I took a beetle that I hadn't seen before, found in a head of broccoli, into the Ag Dept entomologist. To my horror I found out that it is a very good destroyer of aphids and I had killed it, well it died in the container whilst waiting for me to get to town to ID it, and that it was also a female, a "breeder" Oh Horror. Luckily she has plenty of mates here and I haven't had a problem with aphids that I thought I would. The area is saturated with wild radish, which last year had so many aphids on that all the wild radish died, much of it without setting seed. And consequently there is not much wild radish around this year. So I thought my veg would be crawling. Early in the winter I planted Mizuna, grew outa sight, then the aphids hit and reduced it to yuk in a few days. You know the smell of aphids in a feeding frenzy. Definitely Yuk. But the ladybird numbers were just starting to crank up, and lots of other hunters were gathering for a feed, so I left the Mizuna in place until it was just about nothing left. Amazingly, all the brassicas and lettuces, peas etc, that I was expecting to be attacked as well because everything is interplanted, were not touched!!! When I couldn't stand the smell anymore, and the predators had spread out through the garden, I carefully ripped all the mizuna out and into a sealed rubbish bin. Left it in the sun for a week before I took the lid off!! Hah all dead, but what a stink. More food for the worms. Since then I have only seen an occasional aphid, when I look later there is a ladybird or a beetle or a hoverfly dining. I'm sure they wink at me as I tell them what good little bugs they are. OF COURSE THEY CAN'T TALK, NOT POLITE WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL LOL LOL :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
     
  6. Peter

    Peter Junior Member

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    Hi,
    What would you want them for?
     
  7. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    for us they converted our solid waste in our nature-loo toilet wonderfully, was great while they could sneak in under the old style seat, then we needed a new seat which sealed them out, but any fly larva will help in decomposition, friend used to encourage fly larva in his compost tumbler(which never got tumbled), can't say as how he created more flies, the maggots also gave him heaps of wee.

    len
     
  8. Peter

    Peter Junior Member

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    flies are not the best solution plus I don't like the idea of multiplying flies. Why don't you use microbes?
     
  9. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    The actual flies are small and don't bite buzz or otherwise annoy. They are great at processing kitchen scraps and chooks love to eat the larvae. If you feed the larvae to chooks then growing a large fly population isn't a problem.
     

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