2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The sprout fly often harms pumpkin and gourd crops and is found almost everywhere. It affects mainly legumes and pumpkin crops, as well as cabbage, corn with sunflowers, onions, beets and a number of other crops. The most significant damage, as a rule, is caused by voracious larvae of the first generation. And the older larvae (there are three generations in total) attack the roots of the vegetation that has already matured. In years with dry or cold summers, sprout flies are especially harmful
Meet the pest
The sprout fly is a garden parasite ranging in size from 3 to 6 mm, colored in yellowish-gray tones. The mesonotum of these harmful gourmets is equipped with three dark brown stripes, as well as a pronounced brownish bloom. Their gray abdomens are decorated with longitudinal narrow black stripes, and the chairs painted in gray are endowed with a velvety frontal strip of a light orange hue.
Long white eggs of sprout flies reach 1 mm in size. They are narrowed at one end, and slightly twisted at the other. The length of the rather fleshy pale white larvae is about 6 - 7 mm. All larvae have a pair of curved black mouth hooks, and their anterior ends are slightly narrowed. The size of the elongated-oval brownish-yellow cocoons, equipped with four large denticles at the posterior tips, is 4 - 5 mm.
Pupae overwinter at a depth of seven to ten centimeters in the soil, in false cocoons. The flight of additionally feeding flies starts in April, usually in the second half of it. Eggs are laid by sprout flies mainly under moist soil lumps. It is noteworthy that the laid eggs dry out rather quickly and immediately perish in dry soil. The embryonic development of parasites takes about three to nine days. The revived voracious larvae, the development of which usually takes from 30 to 40 days, begin to move very actively in the soil in search of seeds. They do not disdain the remains of vegetation. And as soon as they find germinating seeds, the larvae making their way into them in the places where sprouts emerge begin to eat up numerous pits and grooves in the cotyledons. Of course, as a result of such attacks, all damaged seeds quickly rot and die. And on the ladders of pumpkin crops, the larvae of sprout flies penetrate into the stalks through the cotyledons. Crops attacked by pests also die pretty quickly.
As a rule, three generations of sprout flies have time to develop in a year. The start of the summer of flies of the first generation is celebrated at the end of April and in May, representatives of the second generation fly in June, and the third - closer to the end of July. Gluttonous larvae pupate inside the soil in rather dense fake cocoons.
How to fight
Fall plowing is a good protective measure against sprout flies. Also, during the season, the soil is subjected to two or three treatments. Sowing crops early will also do a good job. If the number of flies is large enough, then before sowing various crops, it is recommended to apply insecticides in granular form to the soil. And if manure is used as fertilizer, then it should be embedded in the soil as deep as possible.
It is noteworthy that the crops planted by seedlings are practically not affected by sprout flies. And the seeds, in order to avoid damage by these parasites, should be sown in well-warmed soil (at a depth of about ten centimeters, its temperature should be at least twelve to fourteen degrees).
These garden enemies have plenty of natural enemies. At all stages of development of harmful sprout flies, predators, among which ground beetles and beetles of the Aleochara genus, contribute to the reduction of their number. They are also infected by riders from the families of Braconids, Eucolides and others, and in puparia of flies, numerous nematodes from families with interesting names Rhabditidae and Cephalobidae often parasitize. The formed adults of sprout flies are attacked by Entomophtora muscae, and pupae by microsporidia called Toxoglugea and fungi of the genus Fusarium.
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