2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
If the Colorado potato beetle and the aphid that loves to overeat can be seen with the naked eye, then you can see a spider mite, less than a millimeter in size, only armed with a magnifying glass. This also applies to the thinnest web that the tick weaves, creating the comfort of its place of stay. The tick has no preferences in choosing a prey; it, like a locust, eats everything. He is not embarrassed by any weather conditions, only frosts and eternal ice of Antarctica have suspended his march across the planet. Moreover, the expanses of water do not allow the sap-eating conqueror to enter their territory, protecting the plants living on and under water from him
All-round siege
The harmony of nature is touching if you rarely communicate with her and as freeloaders. If you are making attempts to make friends with her actively, that is, you are going to grow your own cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants and other garden delights on your own in the long-awaited summer cottage, nature suddenly turns to you, unexpected for you, sideways. She sends on your head, or rather, hands, so many all kinds of enemies that you simply wonder how something ripens in the garden by the fall and asks for the bins.
Little spider
The spider mite is not an insect, but a species of arachnids. The small size of the spider does not interfere with its fertility and gluttony.
During its short life, the tick changes color several times. Larvae hatch from almost transparent, whitish-yellowish eggs. Moreover, fertilized eggs give birth to females, and unfertilized ones - males. The larvae have six arthropod limbs. Diligently replenishing their strength at the expense of the plant, the larvae after the first molt turn into nymphs. This is not the ancient Greek mythological bride nymphs, but just the name of an intermediate stage in the development of a tick. The nymphs already have eight limbs, like in adult sexually mature individuals (adults are the last stage of development).
The color of adult ticks is often yellowish, greenish or brownish. Overwintering females dress up in orange-red or bright red clothes and, huddled in the cracks of houses, go on a starvation diet. This is one of the reasons why tick control is difficult. After all, even if you managed to deal with them in the garden, the ticks that crawled out of the cracks after hibernation with an increased appetite again take up their insidious work.
You can find a spider mite on a plant by the light dots that appear on its leaves.
General approaches to pest control
* Most importantly, do not overestimate your strength. Plant as many beds and types of vegetables as you can handle, preserve, grow and preserve the crop. On unused land, equip a lawn, plant trees, organize a basketball or tennis court, build a small house for preschool children or an aviary for livestock.
* Check the advice you read, which is given in abundance by people far from gardening, on a separate plant. When you receive a positive effect, expand the area of its application.
* Use pesticides as a last resort, when this plant can no longer be saved, but you can still save others.
How to protect plants from spider mites
People have not yet come up with effective one hundred percent recipes for fighting a tick. Therefore, he walks freely in indoor flower beds, garden beds and summer cottages.
A special problem is created not only by wintering individuals, but also by migrating females that go on a starvation diet during the summer heat.
Similarly to wintering ones, they wait out especially hot days, hiding in the house. When the heat subsides, the females go out to eat.
In the fight against spider mites, it is necessary to take into account the duration of their development cycle, which depends on the air temperature. For example, at plus 30 degrees Celsius, the larvae hatch from the egg in 2-3 days, and at plus 15 - in two weeks. When planning the timing of the treatment of plants with chemicals, it is necessary to take into account such features.
It must be remembered that the spider mite is NOT an INSECT, but an arachnid. Therefore, the chemicals used in the fight against insect pests do not affect him. To combat ticks, ACARICIDES ("death to ticks") are used, which, unfortunately, are not safe for humans either.
If a spider mite has chosen your greenhouse, you can put another mite there - a predator named "phytoseiulus". He will help to deal with the invader.
For thousands of years, the spider mite has adapted to earthly life and has been very successful in this. It adapts easily and quickly to the substances used against it. Do not expect easy victories in a duel with a tick, but do not give up. Maybe you are the one who has to put an end to the centuries-old epic.
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