2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Many pests on the plum give gardeners a lot of trouble. There are many tricks and methods of dealing with them, but only safe ones should be used on the personal plot. Today we will consider sawflies, a woodcutter weevil
Varieties of sawflies
3 types of sawflies damage the plum:
• black plum;
• cherry slimy;
• yellow plum.
Let's consider each representative in more detail.
Black plum sawfly
The adult specimen has a black, shiny body, reaching a length of 0.5 cm, yellowish legs, transparent with brownish veins, two pairs of wings. The caterpillar is whitish-green curved with a brownish head.
Hibernates in the larval phase inside a cocoon at a depth of 10 cm in the soil. Gives 1 generation. Adults emerge from the soil a week before the plum blossom, laying single eggs in each flower bud.
The larvae appear during fruit setting, eating the flesh. They move from one fruit to another, causing the berries to shatter. A month later they leave for the winter.
In a rainy warm summer, its number increases significantly.
Slimy cherry sawfly
Damages all stone fruits. An adult 0.6 cm long is shiny, black with brownish, transparent wings. The yellowish-green body of the larva is covered with a black slimy mass. In the surface layer of the soil, larvae overwinter, where in late spring they pass the pupation phase.
In July, adults appear. Females lay eggs in incisions on the underside of the leaf plate. The hatched caterpillars feed on juicy pulp, leaving veins.
They dry out quickly, then fall off, which negatively affects the laying of fruit buds. In September, the larvae hibernate. It develops for the season 1 generation.
Yellow plum sawfly
The adult is brownish-yellowish in color with darkish wings, red whiskers. The caterpillar is brownish-yellowish with a dark brown head. Produces one generation per season.
The larvae hibernate in the ground at great depths. They pupate in late spring. Before the plum blossoms, the emerging adults feed on the flowers. Females lay eggs in an unblown flower.
After 14 days, the hatched caterpillars, crawl into the ovary, gnaw the pulp together with the tender bone. A month later they leave for the winter.
Measures to combat all types of sawflies:
1. Digging soil around the trunk in the fall to destroy the caterpillars.
2. Shaking off adults on the litter before flowering, with further destruction.
3. Systematic collection, disposal of fallen ovaries with larvae inside.
4. The use of infusion of tobacco, tomato tops, larkspur, henbane, celandine twice: in the phase of bud formation - against adult insects, after flowering - against caterpillars.
5. Spraying with "Inta-vir", actellik or biological - bitoxibacillin, acarin.
Woodcutter weevil
Small beetle 3 mm long, deep blue, with a metallic sheen. Larvae and beetles overwinter in the soil. For 2 years gives 1 generation.
In early spring, adults from wintering places go outside, move to the crown of the plum, feeding on the buds. Young branches and females appear, gnawing a hole in them, and lay eggs.
Down the trunk, they eat up the shoot, breaking it. The leaves dry up. The hatched larvae find food inside the stem.
At the end of July they migrate to the soil for wintering. They pupate in the summer the next year. Young and adult individuals do not leave the ground, they winter in the same place.
Control measures:
1. Digging up the soil in the fall under the crown of a plum tree to destroy hibernating beetles and larvae.
2. Collection, destruction all summer drying shoots with pests.
3. Spraying at the time of bud break with karbofos, actellik.
4. Shaking off beetles on oilcloth at temperatures below 10 ° C.
We will consider butterflies actively damaging plum trees in the next article.
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