Move to import wasp

Agricultural scientists have asked for consent to import and release a new strain of a parasitic wasp to combat root weevils destroying the clover in the nation's pastures.

AgResearch has told the Environmental Risk Management Authority it wants to release a new Irish strain of a the tiny (3mm) parasitic wasp.

But they will first have to convince regulators that the Irish strain will not behave like the Moroccan strain of the wasp, which was introduced in 1982 to control the lucerne weevil, but then began attacking native broad-nosed weevils that live in tussock.