Researchers investigate a broad range of biological tools for control of insect pests.
These include use of parasites, pathogens, growth regulators, bio-insecticides, and foreign predators. For example, when scientists checked out a Georgia cottonfield last year, they determined that about one-fourth of the specimens of one spider species had dined on eggs of two cotton pests. In Colorado, they conducted the first North American survey for spiders that kill cereal aphids and other wheat pests. ARS entomologist Matthew H. Greenstone. But they have been largely neglected, mainly because their effectiveness has been difficult to demonstrate.