2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Growing seedlings is a rather troublesome business, requiring not only certain time and financial costs, but also constant attention to growing seedlings, because they can easily be affected by various ailments or pests. And if you do not notice the onset of the development of a particular disease or the appearance of pests on the seedlings in a timely manner, you can lose a solid part of the desired harvest. What pests most often attack vulnerable seedlings?
Thrips
In appearance, thrips are very similar to tiny butterflies, and their length rarely exceeds one millimeter. Gradually sucking the juices from plants, they leave characteristic traces in the places of their "bites" in the form of miniature silvery specks. Some time later, such spots begin to slowly grow and merge, and as a result, the leaves are completely covered with them.
Best of all in the fight against thrips have proven themselves such insecticides as "Akarin", "Vermitic" or "Fitoverm". They are used for spraying, and such spraying is carried out at least three times, observing an interval of a week and a half. And in order not to encounter these harmful parasites in the future, before starting to sow seeds for seedlings, it will not hurt to thoroughly disinfect both the substrate and the containers used for these purposes. And, of course, you should strictly comply with all the requirements of certain crops to growing conditions!
Aphid
She is not only incredibly voracious, but also endowed with the ability to reproduce at a truly lightning speed. It is very easy to determine the presence of aphids on plants, since their leaves in this case change color and shape rather quickly: firstly, they discolor, and secondly, they curl. Quite often, the so-called "honeydew" appears on them - this is how the sticky and sweet secretions of insects are called, which is an extremely favorable environment for the reproduction of pathogenic fungi.
In order to avoid unwanted encounters with aphids, seedlings should not only be regularly examined for the presence of these harmful insects, but also provide them with optimal parameters for full-fledged cultivation. All plants, without exception, must be placed so that their leaves do not come into contact with each other, and regularly water them with well-settled clean water, the temperature of which should not be lower than room temperature.
If aphids were nevertheless noticed on the grown seedlings, with a small number of parasites, you can easily collect them by hand, after which the plants are sprayed with a solution of laundry soap (for every liter of water, twenty-five to thirty grams of soap are taken). And if the number of aphids begins to cross reasonable boundaries, you will have to resort to the help of insecticides: for example, Fitoverma, Kinmiksa, Decis, Inta-Vira, etc.
Spider mites
For the human eye, these pests are practically invisible - it is usually possible to understand that the seedlings were attacked by spider mites only when its leaves begin to turn yellow and gradually fade, and their backs are abundantly covered with tiny black dots. If the lesions are especially severe, then chlorotic spots with pinpoint necrosis and a well-visible arachnoid bloom will additionally appear on the leaves.
The main preventive measure against spider mites is a systematic examination of the seedlings and providing them with optimal living conditions. As soon as black dots begin to appear on the lower sides of the leaves, the seedlings immediately begin to be regularly sprayed with water. And if the seedlings have suffered from the invasion of spider mites badly enough, it will not hurt to use "heavy artillery" like "Iskra M", "Kinmiks", "Fitoverma", "Aktellika" or "Fufanon".
Whiteflies
Seedlings and whiteflies that feed on plant juices and do not disdain neither cuttings, nor stems, nor leaves do a lot of harm to seedlings. Sucking out life-giving juices from them, they produce sticky enzymes that create favorable conditions for the development of pathogenic fungi, as a result of which parts of plants attacked by pests quickly dry out and die off.
Most often, whiteflies settle in apartments and houses with sufficiently low humidity and at the same time high temperature, therefore, in order to avoid their appearance, the premises should be ventilated as often as possible and placed containers filled with water near the plants - they will help increase the air humidity. And in the event that the pests have already appeared, it will not hurt to purchase and hang special yellow sticky tapes in the room, or to start regular spraying with garlic infusion: to prepare it, pass a couple of tablespoons of peeled garlic cloves through a meat grinder, after which the mass is transferred to a glass container and After filling it with a liter of water, cover it with a lid and let it stand for exactly five days. Then the "ripe" infusion is diluted with water (for each liter of water, a teaspoon of such infusion is required) and the growing seedlings are sprayed with it.
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