2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The crooked currant leafworm lives everywhere and is very partial to berry crops. Most often, it damages currants, blackthorns, mountain ash, various fruit crops, wild rose and hawthorn. Spruce, hazel, buckthorn, birch, oak, larch, barberry, as well as ash, poplar and maple do not escape her attention. So that the destructive activity of harmful caterpillars does not lead to the loss of most of the harvest, these gluttonous parasites must be actively combated
Meet the pest
The crooked currant leafworm is a rather peculiar butterfly with a wingspan of 16 to 24 mm. The front wings of these voracious pests can be either light brown or terry yellow. The bases of the wings, the upper spots and the middle of the bands are brownish in color and brownish edging. And the hind wings of crooked currant leafrollers are painted in dark gray tones and equipped with yellowish front edges.
Oval yellowish-greenish eggs of pests reach a size of about 1.5 mm. Caterpillars of the first instar are characterized by a gray-greenish color and are endowed with black heads, and the color of caterpillars of the last instar can vary from yellow-green shades to brownish. On the yellow-brown heads of caterpillars, it is easy to notice darkish cheek and eye spots, the length of which often reaches 22 mm. Light brownish pupae, which grow up to 10-14 mm in length, are endowed with darkish backs, and their cremasters have the form of extended narrow lobes equipped with hook-like bristles (usually there are eight of them).
Caterpillars of the third instar overwinter in silky and rather dense cocoons located under the scales and in the cracks of the bark, at the bases of the buds, under dried foliage, in the branch branches and even on the branches themselves (in this case, they attach to them with the help of cobwebs). As soon as the buds begin to bloom on the trees, and the average daily temperature reaches twelve degrees, the caterpillars begin to get out of their shelters and start feeding on leaves, as well as blossoming buds and young flowers. Caterpillars braid all their food with loose cobwebs. And they fold the leaves in half (necessarily along the central veins), skeletonizing them from the inside. This is not the end of the destructive activity of the gluttonous parasites - in addition to everything, they damage the ovaries, making depressions in them with their sharp teeth.
The duration of spring feeding of caterpillars covers the period from twenty three to forty five days. After this time, caterpillars pupate in both intact and damaged leaves. After another eleven or fourteen days, you can observe the departure of butterflies. And since pupation of crooked currant leaf rollers is characterized by unevenness, the flight of butterflies is stretched for quite a long time.
Female pests lay eggs by placing them on the upper sides of the leaves. As a rule, all pest eggs are arranged in two or four clutches, and their total fertility reaches two hundred eggs. The duration of embryonic development of crooked currant leaf rollers is from ten to twelve days.
The revived caterpillars begin to actively skeletonize the leaves, gradually reaching the fruits. In fruits, covered with leaves attached by a cobweb, they gnaw out numerous winding depressions and pits. These injuries are considered the most dangerous, as they often lead to rotting of the fruit.
The overwhelming majority of caterpillars soon go to winter, and some of them continue to develop and, having pupated, gives rise to butterflies of the second generation. Revived caterpillars of the second generation severely damage fruits with leaves, thereby causing serious damage to late-ripening fruit varieties.
How to fight
The leaves inhabited by caterpillars must be collected and immediately burned. In addition, it is recommended to spray apple trees before flowering with 0.3% chlorophos solution. And stone fruits and pears are sprayed with the same composition, but only at the end of flowering.
Against caterpillars of summer generations, treatments are carried out in July and early August: trees are treated two or three times, while observing an interval of fourteen to sixteen days.
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