2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The apple comma-shaped scabbard lives literally everywhere and damages almost all berry, fruit and all kinds of deciduous crops, and sometimes also herbaceous plants. She especially loves poplars and apple trees. Most often, the apple comma-shaped shield populates plants with cells, and in the case of its mass reproduction, solid areas of the bark turn out to be covered with a fairly solid number of shields. The suction of plant juices by these pests greatly weakens the trees and provokes drying of twigs, falling leaves, as well as a decrease in both the quantity of the crop and its quality
Meet the pest
The size of the white females with a slight yellowish tint is about 1, 1 - 1, 5 mm. They are endowed with oblong brownish scutes curved in the form of a comma 3 - 3.5 mm long, widening slightly closer to the posterior tips. The composition of these scutes also includes two larval skins protruding beyond the contour of the head ends. And the legs, eyes and antennae of these pests are absent.
Males of the apple comma-shaped scale are smaller - their length is only 0.5 mm. They are painted in black-grayish tones and, in addition to an oblong and very slender body, have antennae, three pairs of legs and one pair of wings. At the tips of their abdomens, there are long bristle-like processes. The shields in males are similar to those of females both in color and in shape, only their size differs, which in males is 1, 5 - 2 mm.
The size of shiny white oval eggs is approximately 0.3 mm. The length of the wandering larvae is similar to the size of the eggs - 0.3 mm. Oval flat larvae of pale yellow color are endowed with red eyes, antennae, three pairs of legs and a pair of bristles located at the tips of the abdomen.
Eggs overwinter on the bark of twigs and tree trunks under the shields of the females. All eggs are extremely unstable to frost and die immediately as soon as freezing temperatures reach 32 - 35 degrees. The larvae revive and hatch approximately at the end of April or at the beginning of May, as soon as the thermometer rises to eight degrees. The duration of their release is from eight to fourteen days. And two or three days later, the larvae creeping through the trees stick to the bark of twigs and tree trunks, and sometimes they can get to the ovaries with leaves.
First instar larvae molt after 15 - 20 days, losing legs and antennae with eyes during molting. Their scutes at this stage of development consist of crusts and secretory secretions formed after molting. And at the end of the second molt, after 25-30 days, the larvae transform into females, which continue to feed for 20-30 days. In the process of feeding, the size of their scutes and bodies increases by about 2 - 2, 5 times, and the bodies of females begin to occupy all the space under the scutes.
In August and September, females that have reached sexual maturity lay between seventy and one hundred eggs. Their bodies contract as eggs are laid, and upon completion of the egg-laying process, they occupy only a rather narrow front part of the scutes. And some time later, the females die off. Since males are rarely seen, unfertilized eggs are often laid by most females. During the year, only one generation of apple comma-shaped scutes manages to develop.
How to fight
The larvae of apple comma-shaped scale insects are eaten by sirphid flies, predatory bugs, spiders with ground beetles, predatory mites and some other insects. Also, they are parasitized by over thirty varieties of wasps from the chalcid family, etc. In general, these natural enemies have the ability to reduce the population of the apple comma-shaped scabbard to 80% or more.
Skeletal branches and tree trunks must be regularly cleaned of dead bark. Drying twigs are also removed. It is equally important to use seedlings free of apple comma-shaped scales for planting.
If for every ten centimeters of twigs there are five or more shields, and during the growing season, five or more larvae parasitize each centimeter of thick knots, insecticides are sprayed in places where pests accumulate. This is done two to four days after the trees have faded. More precise timing of the treatments can be established by tracking the beginning of the release of harmful larvae from under the shields.
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