2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Rape leaf beetle most often inhabits the forest-steppe and steppe zones. It attacks a huge number of cabbage plants - rapeseed, cabbage, rutabagas with radishes, as well as mustard and a number of other crops. In addition, the rapeseed beetle can willingly eat cabbage seedlings. The main harm is caused by pests in the imago stage. To protect the crop from the attacks of these parasites, immediately after finding rape leaf beetles on the site, you should start fighting them
Meet the pest
The rape leaf beetle is a rather spectacular beetle with an elongated oval shape, the size of which reaches from 7 to 10 mm. The top of its body in the center of the elytra and along the seams is decorated with black stripes. His antennae are also black.
The size of the slightly oblong colored in black-brownish eggs of the voracious rape leaf beetles is about 2 - 2, 5 mm. And the surface of these eggs is usually quite hard.
The length of voracious larvae ranges from 13 to 16 mm. Their abdomens are yellowish, and the dorsal surfaces are painted in brownish-brown shades. The entire body of the larvae is covered with dark tubercles and warts, on which, upon close examination, you can notice small bristles. If you touch such warts, they will begin to secrete a sticky and very caustic substance. And the size of black and yellow pupae reaches 9 mm.
Rape leaf beetles overwinter mainly in the egg stage, but sometimes they can also overwinter in the larval stage in the surface soil layer. In the southern regions, harmful larvae, as a rule, hatch at the beginning of April, and in the northern regions - in May, usually in its first decade. At first, they feed on numerous cabbage weeds. And if the season is characterized by massive reproduction of rape leaf beetles, then they begin to attack the cultivated vegetation (radishes with cabbage and many others). They eat away the pulp of the leaves in such a way that only sadly hanging thick veins remain. Fully developed in 15 - 28 days, the larvae pupate then at a depth of five to eight centimeters in the soil, in rather dense cocoons.
Pupae development takes an average of fourteen to twenty days. Towards the end of May, as well as in June, the release of bugs starts, feeding on juicy pods, flowers and leaves of all kinds of cabbage crops. In summer, when the average daily air temperature is quite high, they burrow to a depth of fifteen to twenty centimeters into the soil, where they remain in a state of summer dormancy until autumn. And at the end of August and with the onset of September, the beetles again get out on the soil surface and, having plenty of cabbage plants, immediately mate. Eggs are laid by females from August to November in the surface soil layer. Their total fertility in this case often reaches from 180 to 250 eggs. From early laid eggs in the fall, larvae can sometimes hatch, which will be in the soil until the onset of spring. Only one generation of rape leaf beetles develops per year, however, this is quite enough to cause serious damage to the crop.
How to fight
A good measure in the fight against harmful rapeseed leaf beetles is the autumn cultivation of the soil (immediately after the pests have completed the egg-laying process), as well as the elimination of numerous weeds representing the cabbage family. Periodically, the soil should be loosened, and in the aisles as well. This is done in order to destroy harmful pupae. Planting cabbage crops early is also a good measure.
Spraying with all kinds of insecticides will be advisable if about ten percent of cultivated crops are inhabited by rape leaf beetles, as well as if each plant has five to six pests. You can use "Zolon", "Actellic" and "Phosbecid". Larvae with bugs are sometimes collected with the help of nets, however, such a measure will be justified only in areas of small size.
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