How To Protect Yourself From The Pear Moth

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

The pear moth lives everywhere and only damages the pear. This insect is especially zealous in the steppes and forest-steppes. It is possible and necessary to fight it, otherwise the loss of the long-awaited crop cannot be avoided

Pear moth - who is she

The insect is a butterfly with a wingspan of 17 - 22 mm. The front winglets of the pear moth are dark gray with a slight brownish tint. They also have pronounced transverse stripes. Hind wings are gray-brown. Eggs of pear moths are round in shape, approximately 1.3 mm in diameter, their edges are flattened, and the central part is slightly convex. Freshly laid eggs are dark red in color, later becoming gray-red.

Caterpillars of this parasite are translucent, grayish-white in color with a small brownish head. Their length usually reaches 16 - 20 mm. Pupae are dark brown in color, 11-13 mm in length. The frons of pupae have a bifurcated conical projection at the top, and 8 hooked bristles can be found at the tips of their abdomens.

Caterpillars that have finished eating go to winter in their cocoons under fallen leaves or in the soil at a depth of 5 - 10 cm. They pupate 13 - 20 days after the beginning of flowering of pears of the Forest Beauty variety (as a rule, it falls on the second - third decade of May) … The pupation process (however, like other stages of development) of these insects is extended in time and can take up to a month. The pupae themselves develop on average from 19 to 22 days.

Butterflies' summer in the steppe zone starts in June, in the first or second decades, and in the forest-steppe zone - in the second or third decade of June. After 8 - 11 days, you can see already massive years, continuing until the very end of July. In general, the lifespan of pear moth butterflies is rather short - from 9 to 14 days. Malicious butterflies are especially active at dusk until complete darkness. Females lay eggs on pear fruits 4 - 6 days after departure; the total fertility of each female averages 40 - 80 eggs. The embryonic development of parasites takes 6-10 days. In the third decade of June, the process of revival of caterpillars starts, which, without coming to the surface and gnawing the lower shells of the eggs, immediately penetrate into the fruits (in one pear they may well develop at once 4 - 5), making in them direct passages-corridors to the very seed chambers … Then the caterpillars eat all the seeds, filling the surrounding space with brown excrement. The development of caterpillars takes 20 - 30 days, after which they leave the fruit, gnawing straight openings ending in round holes (2 - 2.5 mm in diameter).

In general, the caterpillars are not sufficiently cold-resistant - quite a few of them die in cold winters with little snow.

Damaged fruits begin to rot and fall off prematurely. Early ripe varieties suffer most from attacks of pear moths.

How to protect yourself from the enemy

In reducing the number of pear moths, any species of parasites and predators do not play a significant role, although caterpillars, along with pupae, are sometimes destroyed by some species of predators living in the surface layers of the soil.

The greatest effect is provided by high-quality agricultural technology, tillage in near-trunk circles, autumn plowing of row spacings and, of course, the destruction of all kinds of plant residues. It is best to loosen the soil in the near-trunk circles, as well as in the aisles, in the spring during the pupation of the caterpillars and in the summer during the formation of cocoons. You should also clean off old bark from trees and burn it - there may be pest cocoons in it.

You can spray the soil and garden trees with this solution: dissolve 700 g of urea in 10 liters of water. This will eliminate parasites hibernating under trees and on trees. However, this procedure should be carried out before the start of sap flow - if carried out later, it can cause burns to the swelling kidneys.

The wounds on the trees need to be cleaned, disinfected with a solution of copper sulfate (1%), rubbed with sorrel leaves 2 - 3 times with a 10-minute interval, and then covered with garden pitch.

As for insecticides, their use can be effective only when spraying with them is carried out just before the beginning of the mass laying of eggs (35 - 40 days after the flowering of pears), because the revived caterpillars do not move around the pears.

For spraying the garden from pear moths once a month, you can use biological preparations Agravertin, Iskra-bio, Aurum-S, Zdorovy Sad, Fitoverm, Akarin. A good result can be achieved by spraying with solutions of Zircon or Ecoberin - this procedure will increase the resistance of trees and bushes to adverse weather conditions and all kinds of diseases.