2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The striped bread beetle lives almost everywhere and is a big lover of grasses, corn, rye, barley, millet and wheat. It feeds mainly on leaves of young plants and grass seedlings, scraping off the parenchyma of leaves in the form of oblong specks and transparent stripes. The first leaves are especially damaged. Young plants, attacked by a striped grain flea, turn yellow, oppressed and dry out. The main harm is done mainly by the bugs of this pest
Meet the pest
A striped bread beetle is a black beetle ranging in size from 1.5 to 2 mm. The pronotum and heads of these parasites are characterized by a bluish or greenish metallic sheen, which makes them especially impressive. And along each elytron they have one yellow stripe. The inner edges of such stripes are straight and bent inward only in the posterior section, closer to the seam.
Oval pale yellow eggs of striped bread beetles reach a length of about 0.5 mm. White larvae, growing up to 3.5 mm, are covered with sparse hairs and have a cylindrical shape. The last segments of their bodies are equipped with teeth bent upwards and are strongly chitinized. And the pupae, in comparison with the larvae, are colored in darker tones.
Wintering of bugs takes place in forest belts under fallen leaves or in the upper soil layer, as well as on the edges, on ravines and on the slopes of ravines. In the southern regions of Russia, harmful parasites wake up and go for crops in early spring - at the end of March or at the beginning of April, and in the central regions this happens approximately in mid-April. Initially, wild and winter cereals are the food of striped bread beetles. And a little later, when the shoots of spring crops hatch, they will certainly move on to them and begin to damage the young leaves.
At the end of the process of additional feeding, the females begin to lay eggs to a depth of no more than three centimeters into the soil. The larvae living in the soil feed on the roots of cereals. They also pupate in the soil. A couple of weeks after pupation, young bugs fly out, feeding on wild grasses and corn crops, as well as eating ripening grains of barley and wheat. And with the onset of autumn, harmful parasites fly away to wintering places.
A striped bread flea gives only one generation per year. It causes the greatest harm to spring durum wheat, spring barley and various varieties of soft wheat. Winter wheat and maize suffer slightly less from its attacks. As for oats, they are practically not damaged by striped bread beetles. Do not cause significant damage to cereals and larvae.
Damage caused by striped flea beetles at the initial stage of sprouting is especially dangerous. And if the weather is cold and the emergence of seedlings is slightly delayed, the sprouts and leaves in the soil will noticeably suffer. Most often, striped bread beetles can be found in the European part of Russia, as well as in the Far East and Siberia.
How to fight
To limit the number of striped grain flea beetles in the plots and their harmfulness, it is recommended to sow spring crops at an early date. The sides of the plots must be promptly cleaned of plant residues, thereby reducing the number of possible wintering sites for harmful bugs. And the seeds before sowing are allowed to be treated with insecticides. Stubble plowing and autumn plowing of the soil are also quite effective preventive measures.
If a huge number of gluttonous parasites are found on the site, it is advisable to start chemical treatments. The most effective among them are considered such means as "Decis extra", "Karate", "Kinmiks" and "Fastak".
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