2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Potato moth, in addition to potatoes, damages nightshade, datura, tomatoes with eggplants, tobacco and other nightshade plants, both weed and cultivated. By mining the leaves and destroying them, it contributes to a significant weakening of agricultural plants. It is necessary to fight this enemy in a timely manner so that you do not have to pay with the long-awaited harvest
Meet the pest
The size of the potato moth butterflies is 12-16 mm. Their front broadly lanceolate wings are brownish-gray in color, their inner edges are rather dark. Upon closer examination, you can also see medium-sized dark brown strokes and yellow scales on them. The hind wings of the parasites are equipped with a small notch along the outer edge, and the fringe on them is slightly longer than the width of the wings themselves. Also on the anterior edges of the hind wings in males there are tassels of long hairs reaching the middle of the wings.
The pearlescent white oval shaped eggs of the potato moth are about 0.8 mm in size. Track length - 8 - 10 mm; their color is gray-green or yellowish-orange with small dark shields along the body and a longitudinal stripe in the middle of the backs. Brown pupae 5 - 6, 5 mm in size, they are located in silvery-grayish silky cocoons.
Pupae in cocoons, as well as caterpillars of older instars, winter in natural conditions. In potato storages, their development can continue in winter, if the temperature in the room is 15 degrees or more. If you plant tubers inhabited by pupae or harmful caterpillars in spring or tubers with eggs laid on them, the pest will again appear in the garden.
Butterflies fly out in the south of Russia in May. They fly, as a rule, at night, from sunset to sunrise, and also a couple of hours after the sun rises. A day after mating, females lay eggs in small heaps or one at a time - ovipositions are often found on bare potato tubers, on the soil, on the stems and on the bottom of the leaves. Each female is capable of laying about three hundred eggs in a period from two days to two weeks.
Caterpillars, depending on temperature conditions, are born from eggs in 3 - 15 days. Immediately biting into the epidermis of leaves, young shoots, as well as under the skin of young potato tubers and forming winding passages and mines filled with their own excrement, they begin to feed. Having fed in this way for one and a half to two weeks, the caterpillars leave the mines and tunnels and begin weaving cocoons in plant debris and cracks in the soil, between tubers in storage facilities and dried leaves, as well as in other secluded corners - later they will pupate there. After 7 - 12 days, butterflies that lay eggs fly out of the pupae, thereby giving a start to the development of the next generation.
Under natural conditions in southern Russia, this pest can easily develop in overlapping five generations, and the largest number of potato moths can be noted in September-October.
How to fight
It is very important to comply with quarantine rules in the fight against potato moths, preventing its introduction into new areas with subsequent spread.
Potato tubers should be fumigated before planting. If possible, it is better to refuse from summer planting of potato crops. It is regularly necessary to destroy nightshade weeds, and to spud potato bushes in such a way as to prevent tuber exposure.
It is important to harvest the crop before the tops dry out, immediately taking it out of the field or garden and be sure to eliminate all plant residues. Plowing the soil as deep as possible will also do a good job.
If, nevertheless, years of butterflies on the site are identified, and damaged plants begin to appear, they proceed to spraying with insecticides.
To destroy caterpillars and butterflies, Lepidocide, Entobacterin, Dendrobacillin, Bitoxibacillin are used. Bushes are processed with them at any stage of their development, up to the appearance of ovaries. This measure is good in that it helps to delay the development of moths at each stage, significantly reduce the fertility of females, and also ensures the death of a certain part of the harmful larvae.
During the growing season, potatoes can also be treated with Molitsitkor (for 10 liters of water - 1.5 ml). There are also quite good tablet preparations - Iskra and Tsipershans (they are taken one tablet per 10 liters of water).
Tubers for storage can be treated with a solution of disinfecting methyl bromide - this agent effectively fights potato moths even after harvest. And vegetable stores and cellars are recommended to be whitewashed with slaked lime.
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