Raise in greenhouses under biologic control in Spain

Date:10-31-2011

Horticultural production with biologic control techniques is presently taking 25,000 hectares in Andalucia, against the 23,000 from 2005, when the system started to be applied, according to information provided last Wednesday by Hortyfruta.

56% of the main horticultural products cultivated in greenhouses in Andalucia - pepper, tomato, aubergine, cucumber, courgette, beans, melon and watermelon - are under this techniques of biologic control. This means that more than half of this cultivations don't use pesticides to end plagues, but in its place, it's used auxiliary fauna, meaning, small bugs that, literally, eat the plagues.

This percentage corresponds to a total of 25,613 hectares of the total 45,428 total area of cultivation for the present campaign, counting on double cycles of cultivations like courgette and tomato and also Spring cultivations.

Since some years ago, 100% of the pepper area cultivated in Andalucia greenhouses is done with the use of auxiliary fauna. The other two cultivations that tried a higher growth in the use of biologic control are tomato (from 33% in the last campaign to 50% in the present one) and cucumber (from 43% to the present 65%).

These are followed by the main Spring cultivations, melon with 60% of cultivated area and watermelon with 55%. In smaller amounts, aubergine (35%), courgette (21%) and beans (14%).

The experience developed in the greenhouses in Andalucia caused farming in Andalucia to experiment, according to experts in the whole world, what they called a "Green Revolution". Andalucia is Pioneer and leader in integrated production, not only in Spain, but in the whole world. The industrial production of bumblebees and beneficial insects to control plagues generates in the Almería province a business of more than 50,000,000 Euro.