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Speaker 1: An innovative environmental approach is being used to compact an

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Speaker 1: invasive plant pest in Darwin Papaya merely bug, which can

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Speaker 1: impact the growth of plants and leaves its spread across

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Speaker 1: a number of suburbs after it was detected last year.

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Speaker 1: This new approach is going to see its natural predator

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Speaker 1: released and joining me on the line to tell us

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Speaker 1: a little bit more about the situation is its principal entomologist,

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Speaker 1: doctor Brian Thistleton. Good morning to your doctor. Good morning,

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for your time this morning. Now, firstly,

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Speaker 1: can you tell us a bit more about the pest

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Speaker 1: and how it impacts plants.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a millibug. It's a sucking insect which lives

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Speaker 2: on the plant, sucks the sap and causes distortion the relief.

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Speaker 2: It's causing trandypaney leaves now to fall off. It is.

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Speaker 2: It's a new pest for the territory. It came in

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Speaker 2: middle of last year, but it comes initially from Central

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Speaker 2: America and in twenty twenty. In two thousand, it moved

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Speaker 2: from Central America into the USA and caused a lot

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Speaker 2: of problems in Florida. They did a lot of research

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Speaker 2: and found some native predators in in Central America and

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Speaker 2: introduced them into Florida and later into a number of

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Speaker 2: country in Southeast Asia where the mellibuger got through and

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Speaker 2: those parasitoids and little tiny wass were really effective. We'll

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Speaker 2: have those here. They've actually come in with the mediabug

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Speaker 2: are building up, but they're not in big enough numbers

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Speaker 2: yet to control them. In the meantime, there is a

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Speaker 2: native ladybird which is a predator. It's called the mellibug

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Speaker 2: ladybird and that feeds on the mellibug and that's what

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Speaker 2: we were that is already in Darwin. But what we

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Speaker 2: did last week was got some more from their available

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Speaker 2: for biological supply houses and we got some more and

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Speaker 2: made a release of those.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, right, so it sounds really interesting. Actually, So how

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Speaker 1: do you release all of those of their specific areas

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Speaker 1: where they get released, Well, I mean.

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Speaker 2: They can be released more widely eventually. We just did

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Speaker 2: a last week. We did a demonstration on some plants

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Speaker 2: on the Espanade and then we had quite a few extra.

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Speaker 2: So we're distributed around the suburbs, but in a lot

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Speaker 2: of places we're finding them there naturally anywhere they are

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Speaker 2: already present in Darwin and starting to build up.

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Speaker 1: And so at this point in time, if they're already present,

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Speaker 1: if they are starting to build up, how's the trial

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Speaker 1: sort of going to work aside from what was done

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Speaker 1: last week? Is there still going to be some more

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Speaker 1: of them put out there in the different suburbs.

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Speaker 2: Well, we're not funning that as such. We were really

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Speaker 2: doing the release to show what could be done if

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Speaker 2: we need to increase the numbers. We're also monitoring the

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Speaker 2: natural populations and we have had areas where they have

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Speaker 2: built up and already given good control. I know a

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Speaker 2: lot of people are We're getting lots and lots of

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Speaker 2: inquiries at present because people are noticing this, this medibug

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Speaker 2: and it's causing lots and lots of damming. An interesting

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Speaker 2: thing about this melibug, that the labor bird, is that

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Speaker 2: it's been it's only found in Australia, or used to

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Speaker 2: be only found in Australia. It's been introduced all around

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Speaker 2: the world by other countries specifically to give mellibug control,

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Speaker 2: not just the pa Prie melli bug, but other media bugs.

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Speaker 2: And it's called overseas, it's called the melli bug destroyer,

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Speaker 2: so it is really really effective.

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Speaker 1: And so how wide spratty is the issue of old

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Speaker 1: mealy bug at this point in time in the territory.

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Speaker 2: Well, the the prie media bug is only in Darwin.

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Speaker 2: Well last year came into Darwin, it's now in Darwin, Palmerston.

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Speaker 2: We've phaps records from Howard Springs, We've had some records

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Speaker 2: from Wago Beach. So it is, it is spreading, but

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Speaker 2: it's not elsewhere in Australia. There are a number of

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Speaker 2: other meinie bugs and that's one of the issues. There

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Speaker 2: are other native media bugs that can be mistaken for

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Speaker 2: this thing.

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Speaker 1: And so look, I've got a couple of people messaging

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Speaker 1: me this morning right now, Brian saying, oh, Katie, is

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Speaker 1: this going to be a situation like what we heard

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Speaker 1: with the cane toad, you know, all those years ago.

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Speaker 1: But by the sounds of it, what the approach is

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Speaker 1: is it is actually a natural you know, the natural

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Speaker 1: inact insect, sorry, this ladybird. So it's not as if

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Speaker 1: we're introducing something from you know, from somewhere else into Australia.

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Speaker 2: No, that's no, it is a natural thing. Anyway, The

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Speaker 2: parasitoid is something that's come in from overseas, so that

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Speaker 2: is something that has come in naturally, but it is

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Speaker 2: an exotic insect. But the parasitoid is very specific to

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Speaker 2: the media bug, so that won't be aka problem.

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Speaker 1: Now, Doctor Brian Thistleton, there's going to be people listening

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Speaker 1: this morning who are thinking to themselves or goodness me,

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Speaker 1: you know I've got merely bug or my friends of

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Speaker 1: pannies or or they're worried about this papye merely bug.

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Speaker 1: What should people do if they suspect that they have

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Speaker 1: papye and merely bug on their property.

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Speaker 2: Well, if it's on a friend of panny, it's almost

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Speaker 2: certain to be this. We we can identify them, but

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Speaker 2: we're actually asking people we now know where it is,

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Speaker 2: so we don't need lots of lots of samples coming

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Speaker 2: in to do more identification manly, because the labs of

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Speaker 2: you know, we want we want to work on the

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Speaker 2: control rather than a lot of diagnostics and diagnostics. If

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Speaker 2: we're identifying this media bug, we actually have to make

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Speaker 2: microscope slides of the media bug. So it's it's a

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Speaker 2: preparation period that's quite quite a long time for example, all.

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Speaker 1: Right, so they don't need to call in and let

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Speaker 1: you know, but they.

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Speaker 2: Don't need to report, but can look on our website.

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Speaker 2: We do have a fact sheet which we're in the

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Speaker 2: process of updating now telling you what to do. The

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Speaker 2: insecticides are not very effective at all because it's covered

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Speaker 2: in a waxy coating. The insecticides can't penetrate and can't

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Speaker 2: give control. And this was the experience from all the

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Speaker 2: overseas countries too. The only insecticides, or it's not really

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Speaker 2: an insecticide, but the only things at work are There

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Speaker 2: are things that are oil sprays and agricultural oils and

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Speaker 2: soaps which work by smothering the menibug and you can

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Speaker 2: spray those and they don't affect the parastoids. Unfortunately, you

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Speaker 2: can spray those. But I mean, obviously some of these

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Speaker 2: friendy pannies are very tall. You can't get up there

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Speaker 2: to spray them.

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Speaker 1: Well, Principal Entomologist, doctor Brian Thistilton, I really appreciate your

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Speaker 1: time this morning. Thanks very much for having a chat

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Speaker 1: with us. Okay, thank you, thanks for you tell him