The control of the European corn borer from the air

In order to make the biological control also attractive for big companies, we already started in the late 1990s to develop a application unit that can be applied by machine.
In the following years the TrichoKugel showed its diverse applications. Since 2002 it has been applied on large areas by machine. The TrichoKugel was applied in the new Länder by agricultural aircrafts. Operations and field trials with a remote-controlled zeppelin, with paragliders, agricultural aircrafts, helicopters and distributing systems on the basis of fertilizer spreader were carried out.

The high clearance tractor spread Trichogramma on about 100 hectare corn per day. Thus, the TrichoKugel was the leading procedure in the machine application of beneficial insects. The TrichoKugel can be used in all common application systems without problems. The availability of the GPS system and of mini drones opened up a new and elegant possibility of spreading.

Since 2013, the distribution of the throwing units with small multicopters from the air has been tested, 2015 an application on large areas was realized in practice. In the meantime several cooperatives, companies and machinery rings have refined the application technique, so that  in 2016 the treated area is expected to increase further.