2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The plump hawthorn leafworm is an ubiquitous pest that damages pears, apple trees, hawthorn, mountain ash, stone fruits, as well as forest and deciduous species. She feels best in sparse plantations. These parasites damage the blossoming buds and flowers with buds quite badly. Exposure of tree crowns on some crops sometimes even reaches 90%. And on plums and pears with apple trees, fatty hawthorn leafworms damage unripe fruits and ovaries, deforming them by nibbling the outside
Meet the pest
The plump hawthorn leafworm is a pretty attractive butterfly with a wingspan of 19 to 26 mm. The front wings of these pests are colored brownish-grayish. In males, dark brown velvet spots can be seen on the front wings, and in females, brownish-brownish bands. The hind wings of gluttonous parasites are characterized by a grayish-brownish color, and in females near the tops of the wings it is easy to see a light reddish bloom.
Eggs of fat hawthorn leaf rollers reach 0.7 - 0.8 mm in size. All of them are painted in a pale yellow color, and in their appearance they resemble flattened cylinders equipped with rounded tops. The color of caterpillars, growing in length up to 20 - 25 mm, can vary from grayish green to light gray. Their heads are usually dark, and the anal and prothoracic scutes are black and shiny. The abdominal legs of caterpillars are sclerosed from the outside and endowed with three-tiered crowns, each consisting of 52 - 72 claws. And the size of dark brown pupae reaches 14 - 16 mm. Their cremasters culminate in eight small hook-like bristles.
Eggs of pests overwinter in branch branches and in depressions of the bark. The revival of caterpillars begins with the start of the phase of extension and isolation of apple buds. As a rule, the average daily temperature reaches ten degrees by this time. The main food of the caterpillars is blooming buds, as well as flower buds. Caterpillars of older ages first divide the leaves into two halves along the central veins, then skeletonize them from the inside, and after a while they fasten several leaves together with cobwebs, forming peculiar lumps. In general, the nutrition of harmful caterpillars takes from thirty to forty days. They pupate among the damaged leaves in the places of their feeding. In eleven to sixteen days, the flight of butterflies starts, the years of which are stretched out in time and lasts from the end of May until the end of July.
And after three to five days, the pests begin to lay eggs. Each oviposition is formed by twenty to seventy eggs, which are covered with a white waxy protective coating on top. Sometimes in one clutch there are up to ninety eggs. The scutes range in size from 0.2 to 0.5 square centimeters. Pest eggs are attached vertically, in single-layer arcuate rows to the substrate. The total fertility of females is from one hundred seventy to three hundred eggs.
Eggs laid by fatty hawthorn leafworms remain overwintering. For these voracious pests, one-year generation is characteristic.
How to fight
Old and diseased branches must be cut from trees in a timely manner. Light traps are often used to attract harmful butterflies. And the trees attacked by them are recommended to be sprayed with biological pesticides, as well as pyrethroids, organophosphorus compounds or neonicotinoids. Also, during the laying of pests in gardens, it is recommended to release trichograms, which can significantly reduce the number of fat hawthorn leaf rollers.
As for the insecticide treatments, they are usually carried out during the period when the caterpillars emerge from the eggs laid by the females.
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