No recent review of pricing and associated literature provided by commercial suppliers has been put together. Therefore, I worked with Casey Sclar and Dayna Cooper in my lab to try and develop this information. To determine range of advertised cost, comparable units of sale were used for each biological control organisms. As could be expected, substantial discounts usually were associated with large volume purchases. 1 Average cost is based on a small, but uniform, purchase unit, as described in the text.
Costs reflect quoted purchase prices, without shipping.
Some suppliers indicate that multiple numbers of parasites may emerge from a single fly pupa. Fly parasites are generally sold as a mixture of two or more species, with many suppliers not specifying content. 3 Price based on cost of 8,000-10,000 parasites. Does not include price from a national garden catalog, which was almost an order of magnitude higher than any other supplier. The most expensive place to buy beneficial organisms is through a garden catalog.