Mexican bean beetles feed on the foliage of soybeans, snap beans and lima beans, reducing the crop yield. Since 1980, with support from the New Jersey Soybean Board, the laboratory has been releasing a parasitic wasp, Pediobius foveolatus, in New Jersey soybean fields to control this pest. The wasp cannot survive New Jersey winters and must be reared in the laboratory and released into soybean fields each summer.

The wasp attacks the larvae of the Mexican bean beetle and has been very effective at controlling bean beetles. Virtually no insecticides have been applied to the state's soybean crop in recent years and pesticide applications for bean beetle control have been reduced on...