Abstract
The western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) is an important pest insect in strawberry fields, and their larvae attack and spoil strawberry fruits. Because this pest has developed resistance against a number of pesticides, biological control methods using natural enemy species are needed for the establishment of IPM program. In this report, I tried to use a new predatory thrips, Haplothrips brevitubus (Karny) in order to control the pest thrips populations occurred on the two varieties of strawberry, “Sachinoka” and “Benihoppe”. I experimentally found that the predator individuals were mainly distributed on the flowers and juvenile fruits of strawberry plants where the pest thrips were also observed. I also found that the predator could control the pest thrips population effectively.
