Invertebrate Rearing and Insectary Management Special Interest Group “An edible caterpillar project in the Congo” Paul Latham As a result of the loss of forest and unsustainable collection, edible caterpillars, mainly Saturniids, have become difficult to find in Kongo Central province, Democratic Republic of Congo. They represent an important, traditional, high-protein food source for the local population. A project to reintroduce Cirina forda and increase the availability of other species around the village of Kilueka was commenced in 2016. The talk will focus on a recent visit to the project. Thank you for inviting me to talk about an edible caterpillar project in the Congo. Unfortunately, I am not an entomologist, I studied agriculture at Wye College before becoming a Salvation Army officer. My wife and I were posted to what was then Southern Rhodesia in 1962, and then to Kenya where I was involved in training settlement farmers. Later I worked, with a young farmers programme in both Kenya and Uganda, and then we were posted to Bas-Congo (now Kongo Central) province in 1984 to run an agricultural and beekeeping project. It was while I was there that I became interested in edible insects and particularly edible caterpillars. I remember going off into the bush with some children, who are the main caterpillar collectors, and calling “he, he” to make one species, Achaea catocaloides, jerk its body, thus revealing itself conveniently to the collectors. “Bugs and pitfalls: 25 years of culture” Paul Green, Syngenta Starting with species kept during my undergraduate studies the theme will be key examples of insects, among the following Orders: Coleoptera, Diptera, Lepidoptera, Orthoptera and Psocoptera that I have been involved in culturing through various institutions. There have been successes, some inadvertent acquisitions and challenges along the way and these will be highlighted during the course of the presentation. “Culture method development of Myzus persicae for screening” Jamie Birchall, Syngenta” Myzus persicae, commonly known as the green peach aphid or peach-potato aphid, is a significant aphid pest of peach trees, causing decreased growth, shrivelling of the leaves and death of various tissues. In addition, the species also acts as a vector for the transport of more than 100 plant viruses. In 2015, Syngenta’s Insecticide Lead Generation team in collaboration with the Biomaterials team attempted to establish a new platform for screening new active ingredients on M. persicae. Before the assay could be implemented, a suitable plant host which allowed large scale production of M. persicae needed to be identified. Once the host plant was established, we also addressed the issue of finding a reliable & time-effective way to cultivate the host plant. This talk will summarise the method development work and the project’s successes. “Rearing of Ostrinia nubilalis (Leptidoptera: Noctuidae) and Aphis spp. (Hemiptera: Aphididae) to monitor insecticide sensitivities” Alicia Leroux, Syngenta To make scientifically appropriate decisions on Integrated Pest Management (IPM), and to mitigate the tolerance of agricultural pests to pesticides, information regarding the chemical sensitivities of insect populations must be delimited. Syngenta ships insect populations, mainly from around Europe, to the laboratory in Stein, Switzerland. Once in the laboratory, the populations must be reared to levels high enough to conduct bioassays. When working with incoming field populations, rearing to high levels can be challenging due to shipment stress, parasitoids, predators, entomophagus fungi, voltinism, and dietary changes. The challenges and successes will be outlined using examples from Ostrinia nubilalis (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) and Aphis spp. (Hemiptera: Aphididae). “Optimizing insect production systems “Sabine van Miert, Inagro J. Claeys1, D. Deruytter1, C.L.Coudron1, S. STeerlinck1 S.van miert2, L. Vogels2, L. Froolinckx2, A. Wuyts2 1 Inagro, Ieperseweg 87, 8800 Rumbeke-Beitem, Belgium 2 RADIUS-Thomas More University of Applied Sciences, Kleinhoefstraat 4, 2440 Geel, Belgium The possibilities with insects are endless. First of all, insects can be used as food. Today three insect species are registered as novel food in Belgium and are allowed for human consumption. Due to the relatively high protein content a lot of feed producing companies are very interested in insects as well. This sector is actively searching for new protein sources to replace soy and fish meal. For the moment seven insects are allowed in fish feed in the European Union and in the near future also for chicken and pig feed. Besides proteins, insects also contain many other compounds. In which industrial companies are interested. They have several technical and chemical possible applications e.g. the insect fat/oil can be used for biodiesel or even in cosmetic products. Also chitosan, a derivate of chitin, which is the exoskeleton of insects, has a lot of industrial applications e.g. wound patch or lubricant. In Flanders - Belgium we believe in those possibilities and we also noticed that a lot of research still needs to be conducted in order to be able to use insects in a sustainable and economical way. This research is executed by different research facilities, for example Inagro and Thomas More. In order to get an overview of the insect (research) sector in Flanders, the Strategic Platform on Insect rearing (SPI) was established by the government. The SPI-members meet on a regular basis and keep each other posted on ongoing research and new possibilities. By the broad expertise of the SPI-members we are able to cover the wide spectrum of different research fields, such as rearing systems, feed and food applications and chemical analyses. The rearing systems is a research topic of Inagro and Thomas More, with the focus on Tenebrio molitor, Hermetia illucens, Acheta domestica and Locusta migratoria. The goals are optimisation, upscaling and automatization of the (re)production e.g. the trail of Inagro on the Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) of Hermetia illucens. We noticed that the scale is really important. Hermetia illucens larvae are able to reach a FCR of 1:1, when kept in high density. The big difference with lab scale is the immediate applicability of our results for the insect rearing industry, due to the fact that our trails are conducted on semi-industrial scale. Furthermore Inagro is currently working on an automated feeding robot. At first, this will be used for Tenebrio molitor and afterwards trails with other insects will be conducted as well. Five years ago RADIUS started rearing insects with the goal to investigate how the rearing process of different insect species can be optimized, thereby focusing on the valorisation of organic side streams from industry and agriculture. Rearing insects comes with many challenges. The typical setbacks our research group encountered during these years when implementing the insect rearing facility shows that new insides are already gained, but that still a lot of challenges need to be tackled. “Rearing Cowpea Weevils for a Parasitoid Culture” Kwasi Asante, University of Reading PhD Title: Tritrophic Interactions of Cowpea Weevil with Legumes and Parasitoids under Field and Storage Conditions Supervisor: Prof. Mark Fellowes, People and Wildlife Group, School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading. Cowpea Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp (Fabaceae) is an important legume and forage crop, providing a key food source for over 200 million people, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. During storage, the plant is attacked by cowpea weevils (Callosobruchus maculatus) which can lead to 100% loss of the crop in storage. The pest begins its life cycle by ovipositing on pods and seeds in the field; complete destruction occurs in storage when it emerges from cowpea about 25 days later. Emergence from soybean after oviposition takes about 45 days. Dinarmus basalis, is a solitary ectoparasitoid which occurs on the field and in storage and is capable of attacking and killing the weevil in its larval stage. In this presentation the conditions and strategies for successful culturing will be explored by looking at life cycles of the weevils being cultured on two legumes (cowpea and soybean). An overview of the susceptibility of the weevil to attack on the two legumes by D. basalis will also be examined. POSTERS “The Development of ‘Intensive Culture’ Techniques for the Captive Rearing of Bush- crickets (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae)” Jon Delf, University of Liverpool The plurennial nature of bush-crickets lifecycles (which can vary from 1 to 7 years), combined with the relatively short occurrence of young and adult insects in the wild (generally between May and September), makes for difficulty in justifying the use of these insects as models for research within short term programmes or student projects. 10 British species of bush-cricket have been reared over at least 2 generations in captivity to assess whether ‘intensive culture’ techniques can be devised to manage the availability of young and adult insects within shorter and/or more flexible timescales. As an example, it is now possible to ‘compress’ the complete lifecycle of the Short-winged Conehead (Conocephalus dorsalis) down to a minimum of about 6 calendar months and, by extending the period of refrigeration for diapausing eggs up to about 12 months, this species can be made available for study throughout the academic year. These techniques were used to enable an MSc student from Harper Adams University to successfully complete his 2017 thesis into the occurrence of parthenogenesis within the Short-winged Conehead with all practical work being completed between the months of May and July. .