van Lenteren, J.C. 2003a Need for quality control of mass-produced biological control agents.. Quality Control and Production of Biological Control Agents CABI Publishing Wallingford, UK 327 pp.

Notes: Mass-rearing of natural enemies often takes place in small companies with little know-how and understanding of conditions influencing performance, which may result in natural enemies of bad quality and failures with biological control. This makes robust quality control programmes a necessity. Background information is presented on the activity of mass-producing natural enemies, the emergence of the development of quality control worldwide is sketched, basic considerations for quality control are outlined and difficulties encountered when developing quality control are discussed. Hosts mentioned for biological control agents include Planococcus citri, Pseudococcidae and Coccidae.