I’m Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
Spiders kill more insects than they can eat. And most spiders caneat up to two times their body weight in insects each day. So, ifyou want to keep harmful insects out of your garden, invite a fewspiders to live there.
That was the advice given some years ago in the magazine OrganicGardening, published by the Rodale Institute. Spiders do eat bothgood and bad insects. But Professor Susan Riechert at the Universityof Tennessee in Knoxville said spiders eat more harmful insects thanhelpful ones.
Professor Riechert said spiders will remove from sixty to eightypercent of the insects from a garden. But, she added, if you wantspiders to live in your garden, you must not use chemicals that cankill them.
Here are short descriptions of nine different kinds of spidersthat live in gardens.
Orb weaver spiders make huge sticky webs between plants. When aninsect enters the web and is trapped, the spider attacks.
Sheet-web weavers make flat webs. The spiders stays under theweb. When an insect lands on top of the web, the spider reaches upand pulls the insect through to the bottom.
Mesh-web weavers make tiny webs inside small openings in aplant’s skin. This spider eats mainly aphids.
Combfooted spiders trap insects in their webs. Then they wraptheir catch inside more web material.
Funnel-web weavers build circular webs that are wide at the topand closed at the bottom. When an insect lands on the web, thespider jumps out, catches the insect and drags it back inside thefunnel to eat it.
Wolf spiders do not use webs to trap insects. They live on theground among the leaves. They eat aphids, leafhoppers, flies,beetles and grasshoppers.
Jumping spiders also do not make webs. Their meal might include aspotted cucumber beetle, a corn earworm, or a bottom bollweevil.
Lynx spiders will spin some silk to seize an insect. But they,too, do not make a web. They like to eat fire ants.
Crab spiders move sideways, just like crabs in the sea. Crabspiders do not make webs. They wait quietly for an insect to comenear and then they capture it.
Internet users can get more information about Organic Gardeningmagazine on the Web at organicgardening dot com.(organicgardening.com)
This VOA Special English Agriculture Report was written by BobBowen. I’m Gwen Outen.