2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The gray (or earthy) root weevil lives almost everywhere, damaging raspberries with strawberries and a number of other crops developing in the immediate vicinity of strawberry plantings. The main harm is caused to them mainly in the first half of summer, at the stage of strawberry budding, as well as immediately before its flowering. And in a particularly dry summer, all vegetation damaged by gluttonous gray root weevils often perishes
Meet the pest
The gray root weevil is a black beetle with light antennae and legs, 5 - 6 mm long. From above it is covered with grayish-golden scales masking the main color. Slightly convex elytra of this pest grow together with rows of punctate longitudinal small grooves. These parasites do not fly, since their membranous wings are not developed.
The shiny yellowish-white eggs of gray root weevils are approximately 0.65 mm in size. The larvae of this pest are also yellowish-white, 6 - 7 mm in length. They are legless and endowed with a yellowish head and wrinkled body. And the little white pupae measuring 5, 5 - 6 mm are covered with rare thorns.
Immature beetles overwinter in strawberry bushes, under dry foliage, or in the surface soil layer. Overwintering of larvae in soil can take place at a depth of four to ten centimeters. In late April or early May, when the average daily temperature reaches 12-14 degrees, bugs come out and immediately begin additional nutrition, gnawing juicy leaves along the edges.
The peak of activity of harmful bugs occurs in the evening - during the day, gray root weevils hide on the ground at the bases of vegetation. They usually lay eggs behind stipules in rather compact groups - two to three pieces (and in general, up to sixty to seventy pieces). Beetles fill the laid eggs with secretions that solidify in the air. The laying period takes more than two months, and the total fertility of females reaches four hundred to five hundred eggs.
The larvae revived after one and a half to two weeks make their way into the soil and first eat the young roots of raspberries and strawberries, and later move to large roots. A substantial part of the larvae settle in the soil at a depth of about four to six centimeters and at a distance of three to fifteen centimeters from the central parts of the plants. The voracious larvae developing during the month pupate almost always at the end of June. And the development of pupae will take much less time - from twelve to sixteen days. In July, bugs already appear, capable of laying eggs, from which the larvae that remain to winter will subsequently revive. These lovers of strawberries and raspberries begin to move to their favorite wintering places approximately in September. Some individuals live for two to three years, and throughout this time they retain the ability to lay eggs.
How to fight
When planting raspberries or strawberries, it is very important to follow the rules of crop rotation. It is equally important to observe spatial isolation - new plantings are planted at a distance from the old ones, keeping a distance of at least half a kilometer. Also, in the fall, the soil is carefully plowed. Immediately after harvesting, old strawberries are buried in it, thereby depriving the food of gluttonous parasites. And, of course, systematic weed control is a must.
Sometimes malicious bugs are collected by hand and then destroyed. Withering strawberry bushes are also dug up and removed from the site.
Spraying plantations with insecticides is advisable if there are more than two or three bugs per ten plants. It is necessary to keep within with such sprays before flowering. And when gray root weevils of a new generation appear, spraying is carried out even after the crop has been harvested. Most often, spraying is carried out with metaphos (0.2 - 0.3%) or karbofos (0.3%).
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