2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The onion fly is a serious threat to bulbous flowers and vegetables. In the shortest possible time, this parasite is not only able to completely destroy the bulbous plantings and all future crops, but also turn the plots into completely unsuitable for sowing bulbous plants in the future
What is an onion fly
These insects are ash gray in color with an interesting greenish tint. In appearance, they are similar to cabbage and houseflies, however, in comparison with them, they are slightly smaller (5 - 7 mm in length). Pupae of onion flies usually hibernate at a depth of 10 - 20 cm in the ground in those areas where these pests originally settled. From about mid-May, flies begin to fly - this event, as a rule, coincides with the beginning of flowering of dandelions and cherries. Then, on the soil near the plants or on dry onion scales, the females begin to lay several eggs at once. The eggs are white, perfectly visible to the naked eye on the soil - if they are slightly moved away from the vegetation with a knife, the legless larvae emerging from the eggs will die before they can reach the bulbs.
How to deal with an onion fly
The best way to start the fight against the onion parasite is to observe the basic agrotechnical rules. Before starting the fight, you should also remove from the site all parts of the plants that have already been damaged by insects.
Plants will be much less affected by onion flies when onions are planted early, as well as when the soil is mulched with peat. It is easy to scare away insects by sprinkling the soil near the plants with a mixture of ash and tobacco (or tobacco) dust (1: 1 ratio) - if you repeat this treatment 3-4 times every 6-7 days, the onion will be freed from the pest quite easily. Other odorous means will be no less effective - technical camphor, bitter wormwood (ground), naphthalene or ground pepper.
In onion beds, you should always carry out autumn digging of the soil - this will lead to the inevitable death of pupae remaining for wintering.
An effective method of dealing with onion flies is also considered to be the placement of bulbous plantings next to carrot crops - carrot phytoncides scare away pests well. You can also place beds with tomatoes next to them - onion flies do not tolerate their smell either.
These insects are very sensitive to salt, therefore, to get rid of them, it is quite possible to use a saline solution: 300 g of table salt is dissolved in 10 liters of water and the onion is poured with this solution as soon as its shoots reach a height of 5 cm. After such a procedure, after four hours, the seedlings are thoroughly washed with plain water until the salt is completely washed off. After ten days, the procedure is repeated, increasing the amount of salt by another 100 g.
Good results can be obtained by watering the beds with a solution of potassium permanganate (the color of the solution should be deep pink). This procedure is carried out for a month after 7 to 10 days, starting from the moment the onion flies fly out (as soon as the cherry and dandelion bloom).
Water is a helper in the fight
If the eggs of the parasites did not move away from the vegetation, their larvae gradually begin to approach the plants and bite into them. Having climbed from the bottom side or through the base of the leaves into the plants, they begin to eat juicy scales. As a rule, one bulb can often collect up to ten white larvae up to 10 mm in size. The bulbs damaged by them will begin to rot, and as a result, the attacked plant will dry out.
Damaged plants with the help of a scoop should be extremely carefully removed from the soil, and then lowered into a bucket filled with water - the larvae will die as a result. This procedure should be carried out as early as possible so that the larvae, while remaining in the soil, do not pupate, otherwise gardeners will "make happy" flies of a new, second generation with their appearance in July.
Prevention
Rather than losing the harvest altogether, it is better to take preventive measures. The onion planting site should be periodically changed and this crop should not be planted for 2 years in a row in the same place. The bow is returned to its original place only four years later. You also always need to do a crop rotation. Due to the fact that onion flies winter at a depth of about 20 cm, for the winter you need to dig deep into the ground, removing any organic residues from it, so that the parasites have nothing to eat.
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