Finicky Wavy Flea

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

The wavy flea damages quite a few different garden crops - radish with radishes, daikon with turnips, horseradish, watercress, turnips and cabbage. Especially badly, bugs harm young seedlings in the spring. And dry and hot weather significantly increases the damage done by voracious flea beetles. These finicks can be found not only in the European part of Russia, but also in Kazakhstan, Siberia (right up to Primorye itself), Central Asia and the Caucasus. And outside of Russia it will not be difficult to see them in the USA, Algeria, Western Asia and Western Europe

Meet the pest

The wavy flea is a small black beetle with a faint metallic sheen, the body length of which in most cases does not exceed 3 mm. On each elytra of malicious pests, you can see interesting longitudinal yellow stripes, equipped with shallow and rather wide notches on the outside. There are also tiny dots on the elytra, folding in places in bizarre rows. And on the foreheads of the pests, you can see the original stripes of dots.

Translucent light yellow eggs of wavy flea beetles are characterized by an oblong shape and reach in sizes about 0, 34 - 0, 40 mm. The beetle larvae are endowed with dark heads, three pairs of legs and are painted in yellowish tones. Their body is elongated and thin, and the length of the harmful larvae grows up to 5 mm. As for the pupae of the pests, they are also painted in yellowish tones.

With the onset of early spring, harmful wavy fleas emerge from their safe hiding places and begin to inhabit both cultivated and wild cabbage plants. They are especially fond of the yarutka and the rape, however, as soon as the shoots of cultivated plants hatch, the bugs will instantly get over them. Females begin to lay eggs, placing them mainly on the soil surface and placing them in groups of 4 - 20 pieces, and a week and a half after laying the eggs, harmful larvae begin to appear that live in the soil and actively feed on small roots of turnip, radish, radish, etc. The greatest activity of these gluttonous parasites is observed in the daytime: from 10 am to 1 pm, as well as from 4 pm to 6 pm.

After about three weeks, the larvae begin to pupate in the soil, and after a couple of weeks a second generation of wavy flea beetles appears on the site. Summer generation mainly harms rapeseed - bugs eat out characteristic rounded holes on its leaves. And the lower skin of the leaves remains intact.

In all stages of development, as well as in their harmfulness, wavy fleas have much in common with black fleas. Pests differ from the latter only in their color, as well as in their habitat - wavy fleas live in more humid and northward regions.

How to fight

The main preventive measures against wavy flea beetles are the removal of post-harvest plant residues from the areas and, of course, weed control. When growing cabbage crops, it is imperative to follow the basic agrotechnical rules. In addition, in the gardens, it is necessary to regularly rake up all the fallen leaves, and apply fertilizers only in the required doses. It will not interfere with the treatment of seeds with high-quality dressing agents.

In hot weather, the planted seedlings should be watered and shaded. And in order to prevent harmful bugs from pupating, the soil around the planted crops should be systematically loosened.

If the wavy fleas have already attacked the plants, they begin to spray the vegetable plantings with "Foxim" or "Aktellik". The first treatment is usually carried out at the stage of emergence, the second - at the beginning of budding, and the last - after the grown crops have faded. It is not forbidden to use vegetable insecticides, the best among which are tobacco-based products.