Ways To Deal With The Bread Beetle

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

The bread beetle, also called the Kuzka beetle, knocks out hard grains onto the ground and eats away grains of cereals during their milky ripeness, thereby causing serious damage to the crop. Most of all harm from it is in the steppes and southern forest-steppe. Barley, rye, wheat, grains of wild cereals are the favorite food of bread beetles. And their larvae, among other things, do not hesitate to feast on the roots of wheat, rye, beets, tobacco, corn, potatoes, sunflowers and fruit seedlings in nurseries

General information about the pest

The bread beetle is an insect with a length of 12, 8 - 16 mm. His body is bluish-black in color, with a pronounced metallic sheen, the scutellum and head are cast green, and the elytra are dark chestnut with a square speck of black at the scutellum. As for the larvae of bread beetles, they reach a length of 35 mm, white, endowed with legs, antennae and a brown-yellow head.

The duration of the summer of the bread beetle covers the period from late May to early August; these dates in individual years may fluctuate within a couple of weeks. On hot sunny days, these insects are especially active. Two weeks after their emergence, the period of laying eggs begins - for this, females burrow to a depth of 10-15 cm in the ground and in 2 - 3 receptions they lay eggs in small heaps (30 - 40 pieces each). The larvae from these eggs appear in about three weeks and begin to feed on humus, as well as small roots of all kinds of plants, including cultivated plants. Older larvae eat mainly plant roots. The most optimal conditions for the reproduction of parasites are created during warm winters, as well as with sufficient precipitation during the period of egg development.

Bread beetles hibernate in the soil, going in autumn to a depth of 30 to 80 cm and again coming to the surface only in spring. During the summer period, these insects molt twice.

Pupation of grain beetles occurs at a depth of 10 - 15 cm, mainly in ground soils. Harmful parasites are in the pupal stage for two weeks.

How to deal with a bread beetle

To a large extent, the number of these insects can be reduced by various bacterial and fungal diseases, as well as nematodes. It parasitizes on the larvae of the pest and tahini.

A good effect in the fight against the pest is provided by inter-row soil cultivation (the end of May - early June is best suited for this) of fallow fields and row crops by 10 - 12 cm - this helps to destroy a significant number of beetle larvae and pupae. Pre-sowing plowing (cultivation) of fall plowing, post-harvest loosening (stubble plowing) of the soil and separate harvesting of wheat crops at the stage of the beginning of their wax ripeness also help. During the period of grain filling, if 3 - 5 beetles or more are concentrated on one square meter, the marginal stripes of grain crops are treated with insecticides. The most famous of the drugs used are sumithion and decis extra. It is important to know that the last treatment should be carried out 20 days before the start of harvesting, no later than.

Spraying with a strong vinegar solution can also do a great job in the fight against a bread beetle. Dusting planted crops with well-sifted ash is also effective - birch is considered the most destructive for insects. The procedure is best carried out either after rain or in the morning, when the leaves are sufficiently moistened with dew. About 10 kg of ash are taken per one hundred square meters. For maximum effect, you can sprinkle ash and soil between the planted plants. Some summer residents also practice dusting with gypsum, cement, corn flour and sprinkling sawdust between rows.

You can spray crops with a solution of birch tar three times a week - for this, 100 g of tar are diluted in 10 liters of water. It is possible that an infusion of crushed dried bark of white acacia will also come in handy: for three days, 1 kg of bark is insisted in 10 liters of water, then the resulting infusion is filtered. Alternatively, you can insist in 10 liters of water and half a kilogram of sunflower flowers for three days.