2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The onion rattler, in addition to onions, is also quite harmful to lily crops. It belongs to a large family of leaf beetles, which gladly eat flowers, stems and buds with leaves. These pests got their funny name due to the fact that with an impending danger they emit a rather high-pitched sound emanating from the abdominal cavity. And onion crackers are also colloquially called "firemen" because of their spectacular red color. Often they are confused with lily rattles, whose legs and heads are not red, but black, therefore, upon close examination, it will not be difficult to distinguish these parasites from each other
Meet the pest
The onion rattle is a rather colorful beetle, reaching a length of 6 - 8 mm and endowed with a very slender body and a narrow pronotum in the elytra, the top of which has a red or orange color. As many as ten rows of small dots can be seen on the elytra of the parasite. The bottom of the body, legs and knees with antennae in these bright pests are colored black. And the length of their abdomens is twice the length of the antennae.
The larvae of this pest are endowed with a short, pale white body, strongly convex in the middle, with black spots on the sides, as well as three pairs of thoracic legs. Their legs and heads are black, and from above the harmful larvae are covered with excrement and mucus.
Both larvae and beetles live on cultivated and wild onion and lily plants, periodically damaging the stems, flowers and leaves of onions, asparagus and garlic. Both are equally dangerous for growing crops.
From May to July, spectacular pests begin to lay eggs about 1 mm in size. They are shiny, have an oblong shape and are colored in yellow-orange or orange tones. Closer to the moment the larvae appear, the eggs gradually acquire a brownish tint. All the eggs laid by the female are usually placed on the lower sides of the leaves, and a lot of them are laid by each individual - about 250 pieces. It is quite simple to remove them from the surfaces of the leaves, since the eggs are almost not attached to them.
Six to ten days after laying the eggs, tiny larvae begin to appear from them. At the initial stage of development, they are located on the surface of growing crops, and a little later, gnawing and scraping leaves (mainly from the tops and sides), they move inside the tubular leaves, damaging the inflorescences with stalks and gnawing through them. Pupation of these voracious creatures occurs in the soil. Each larva has time to go through three instars. And the duration of the pupa stage is about 14 - 21 days.
How to fight
When growing onion and lily crops, weeds that appear on the plots should be systematically destroyed. Competent crop rotation in crop rotation is no less important.
During the feeding period of harmful larvae, it is possible to protect the vegetation by spraying with an infusion of bitter wormwood. To prepare such an infusion, the tops (approximately to the middle) and wormwood leaves are taken. A bucket of raw grass is infused in water for 24 hours, after which it is boiled for half an hour, and then diluted in half.
Good results are also obtained by spraying with an infusion of high larkspur. Unlike wormwood, it is allowed to take the whole plant from larkspur, it is only important to collect raw materials at the very beginning of flowering. Coarsely crushed raw materials in the amount of 1 kg are infused in ten liters of water for two days, and then the resulting composition is filtered and immediately used. And so that the droplets of the prepared infusions do not roll off the leaves, some surfactants should be added to them, which can be PVA glue in small quantities, an inexpensive shampoo or any other non-toxic substance that helps to reduce the excessive surface tension of the solution used.
It is recommended to process the vegetation with the above infusions on a weekly basis. Sometimes voracious beetles are harvested by hand, but this measure will only be justified if the size of the plot is not too large.
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