Phragmites biological control program in Essex County

We bring insects from the native range of this invasive plant. We go through years of safety and host range testing to make sure these insects are just going to feed on the Phragmites and none of the other plants that we have here in Canada. And then we release them in the Phragmites. And the idea is that we are reintroducing a natural enemy to this Phragmites. So it's now more likely to grow more in the habit that it would grow in its native and give native plants much more of a foothold back in these environments. So we've had the licence to release these moths since 2019. Since that time, we've released nearly 40 sites. At almost all those sites where we've released, we've seen damage from the moths in the year of release. And then beyond that, in subsequent years, we've seen damage in 100% of those sites where the initial releases worked. What that tells us is that these moths are successfully overwintering. Successfully reproducing in these Canadian fields. Release cut For releasing the eggs of the two biological control moths, what we do is we put the eggs of the moths inside this internal container. It has a very kind of fine mesh at the bottom. The eggs then go inside this larger container and when the eggs hatch they can emerge from that internal container and the bottom of the large container is is lined with a thicker mesh which stops predators coming in and eating the eggs. But at the same time the gaps are big enough to allow those first in Star or or tiny larvae to drop out of the container and start infesting the phragmites stems around them. So this is 25 cut phragmites stems. So each one of these stems has an individual LANISA Gemini puncture Caterpillar inside it. So we wait for those eggs to hatch in the lab, and then we use a paintbrush to insert the lava inside. That means that the lava will feed happily inside one of these stems for up to a week to 10 days. So it gives us a little bit of time, a little bit of leeway to get this whole structure out into the field where the phragmites is before these larvae are going to emerge, and then hopefully start doing their thing.