2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The cucumber gnat is found everywhere and damages the cucumbers growing in greenhouses. It often enters greenhouses with various organic fertilizers, manure, and onion planting material. It is imperative to get rid of this pest, since in addition to damaging cucumbers, it is a carrier of herbivorous mites and all kinds of diseases. And several generations of cucumber mosquitoes develop in the greenhouse over a year, respectively, the damage from their harmful activity can be very serious
Meet the pest
The size of cucumber gnats is small - the length of males is only 3.5 mm, and females are from 4 to 4.5 mm. These insects are dark gray in color and endowed with a blackish spherical head and sixteen antennae. Their elongated legs are gray-yellow, and the wings are brownish, but they remain transparent.
The length of oval shiny white eggs of cucumber gnats is 0.15 mm. Females lay these eggs in cracks of cucumber stalks, on the ground or in humus in whole heaps - up to 230 - 240 pieces. After 5 - 10 days, harmful larvae appear from the eggs. In the larval stage, they stay for only eight to twelve days. A distinctive feature of the cucumber gnat larvae is the translucent dark intestine and the black chitinized head. The favorite habitat of harmful larvae is the lower parts of the cucumber stalks and roots, as well as manure and humus.
White free pupae of the parasite live in thin cobweb cocoons, outside covered with small particles of soil. Their development continues for five to seven days. Thus, the full development cycle of the enemy of cucumbers takes on average 25 - 30 days. The larvae overwinter in the soil in cocoons. For a year, the cucumber gnat gives up to eight generations. In the greenhouses of the Moscow region, years of gluttonous pests are often noted already in February.
The main harm to cucumbers is done mainly by the larvae, which grind in the shoots near the soil, in the bases of the stems and in the roots of numerous passages. In the case of significant colonization of vegetation, when fifty or more parasitic larvae can be found in the roots of one plant, the pests strongly soak the roots, as a result of which the plants quickly wither and subsequently die.
How to fight
When growing cucumbers, it is very important to strictly follow the rules of agricultural technology - this will help limit the spread of the pest. It is equally important to grow healthy and robust cucumber seedlings. Weakened vegetation is especially attractive to cucumber gnats.
The soil in greenhouses must be disinfected chemically or thermally. To destroy the cucumber gnats during their summer, the soil around the plants, near the lower parts of the stems, as well as the glass of the greenhouses, are sprayed with various insecticides. Good help in the fight against the cucumber gnat "Aktellik" and "Iskra". "Sparks" for ten liters of water is enough to take just one tablet, and when spraying, about 100 ml of the prepared solution is consumed for each square meter.
It is recommended to spray greenhouses and greenhouses moving on the glass, as well as adults sitting on plants, with "Chlorophos", which takes only 20 g for ten liters of water, as well as "Thiofos" - even less for ten liters of water - 5 g. When the larvae of gluttonous parasites are found, the soil is also shed with "Thiophos".
It is no secret that all chemical preparations poison vegetation to some extent. To mitigate the effect of such funds on the leaves, experienced summer residents advise adding urea to all solutions of pesticides - ten to twenty grams will be enough for a bucket. In addition to the fact that it will have a softening effect on vegetation, it will also serve as a good additional feeding.
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