CRYPTOforce™ – mealybug destroyer (100/ 250/ 500)

Product Description

CRYPTOforce™ is the mealybug destroyer, Cryptolaemus montrouzieri — a lady beetle used mainly for mealybug control, with appetite for certain scale insects too. Both the adults and their shaggy, mealybug-mimicking larvae are fierce predators that can eat 30 to 70 prey a day, and females lay up to 400 eggs right in mealybug hot spots. It works in fruit, ornamental, and vegetable crops, and growers have used it successfully in just about every setting.

What it targets

• Citrus Mealybug (Planococcus citri)
• Comstock Mealybug (Pseudococcus comstocki)
• Obscure Mealybug (Pseudococcus obscurus)
• Solenopsis Mealybug (Phenacoccus solenopsis)
• Mexican Mealybug (Phenacoccus gossypii)
• Long-Tailed Mealybug (Pseudococcus longispinus)
• Crawling and immature stages of some scale insects

Crops it supports

Fruit crops, ornamental crops, and vegetable crops.

How Cryptolaemus montrouzieri controls mealybugs

Females lay up to 400 eggs in mealybug hot spots. Young larvae prefer eggs and early-instar mealybugs, while older larvae and the adults feed on every stage, consuming 30 to 70 prey a day. Both the adults and the older larvae eat far more than the early stages, so a release builds quickly into pressure on the whole colony.

Release Rates

Release Instructions

Release timing: Do not release in the heat of the day. Mist the foliage of the plants just before treatment, and let the beetles warm up first.

Application: Open the container in the crop and gently tap the beetles directly onto the foliage of infested plants, or evenly throughout the crop if the infestation is widespread. If possible, release them next to or on the “cottony egg masses,” and use the container cap to control dispersal. Concentrate the bulk of the predators at release points on or near the most heavily infested plants.

Helping them find prey: The beetles may be attracted to you if you wear white or light-colored clothing during release. Experimentally, placing white 3×5 cards near a mealybug hot spot can help them locate prey. For the long-tailed mealybug and other species that don’t lay eggs in cottony masses, placing pea-size amounts of synthetic batting (from craft stores) near colonies may encourage egg-laying — do not substitute cotton balls, which can carry pesticide residues. Flowering, pollen-producing plants near the release site can also boost egg-laying.

Storage: Do not store Cryptolaemus adults for more than 18 hours. Hold at a moderately humid 50–55°F until ready to release.

Monitoring: The beetles are conspicuous, so diligent scouting will usually spot them in the crop. Also look for shrinking pest numbers and “exploded” mealybug egg masses.

Advisories: CRYPTOforce™ needs to lay its eggs in the cottony egg masses of its prey. Because long-tailed mealybugs lay individual eggs that hatch almost immediately rather than in cottony masses, establishment on them is difficult or impossible — the beetles will eat immature long-tailed mealybugs but can’t reproduce on them.