The tomato leafminer, Tuta absoluta (Meyrick), had established in Israel by 2010, attacking both open-field tomatoes and greenhouse crops. Oxford University searched for its natural enemies in open-field tomatoes, and tried to determine their potential for controlling this pest.
They surveyed the local natural enemies in open tomato fields and measured their impact on pest populations in an unsprayed field. They assessed the suppressive ability of the dominant hemipteran predator, Nesidiocoris tenuis Reuter, against T. absoluta under controlled laboratory conditions and evaluated the impact of its augmentation on T. absoluta control in open-field tomatoes.