Field Notes

A tiny pasture mealybug is damaging Florida grass. The consequences reach beyond the field—to hay supplies, cattle feed and the people who depend on them.

Quiet larvae, missing wax, and buckwheat hulls can make mealybug destroyers difficult to read. Learn what to look for, how to release them, and why slower searching can make sense.

The larvae of Cryptolaemus montrouzieri look so much like mealybugs that growers routinely try to wipe them off their plants. That's the beetle they just released, eating the pest they paid to eliminate. Here's how to tell them apart — and everything else you need to know before you release the most effective biological mealybug control in existence.