If I was to breed the mite hypoaspis in the lab which media should I use?
thanks I will give it a try....if you can tell me about temperature and the humidity
thank you Xuenog Xu.... i wish you could tell me more on how to manage them...Is it done on a special bag with the feed?
I have had the best success using a storage mite like Tyrophagus as food for Hypoaspis.
Rear the Tyrophagus separately using a autoclaved grain product. keep things sterilized or other predatory mite species can invade your cultures. As media one can use Wheat bran alone or in combination with other porus materials, Peat Moss, coarse Vermiculite.
I have successfully reared Hypoaspis using large cultures >16 L and small cultures petri dishes. Managing these in petris requires almost daily hydration and 2x per week feeding with Tyrophagus. Hypoaspis like to feed on intermediate stages of Tyrophagus not the egg or very small stages, and not the largest adults. Others have written that they had success with Collembola sp. and large species of free living nematodes, I had no success with these as foods for Hypoaspis. I also used hydrated Artemia cysts and though the Hypoaspis can occasionally be observed closely examining these, I find their mouthparts do not open, penetrate the cysts, but when Tyrophagus are present their mouthparts can open the cysts and Hypoaspis will then feed on opened cysts. Tyrophagus can overwhelm a culture (ammonia) and they will eat the scattered Hypoaspis eggs.
Thanks a lot phil i am very grateful for your detailed answer..... do i will try to follow your instructions.
Artificial rearing of hypoaspis in Kenya where you are, works best with Flour mites, the carrier material is wheat bran. I am reserved towards using Red spider mites since it is a pest and commercial producers will have issues with customers selling products with rsm in it. Quality control,is also tricky using rsm. Flour mite is the best since it is a non pest. Room temperatures of 25 is fine or slightly above but lower relative humidity or dry conditions has to be maintained for the mites. Get in touch with any dudutech employee to give you tips since I believe you are only rearing a small culture for research. Or alternatively order good quality hypoaspis from them.
I will be in contact with Dudutech since i see they must be doing a great job in IPM thanks Jacinter ..... am in Kenya and i am working on research on IPM on a wide range of products...From biofert...bacteria and fungi too. Thanks a lot for the info too.
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