2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Vertunya leaf, otherwise called leaf moth, is most often found in the steppe regions of Russia - there it is especially numerous. And in small quantities, this pest can be found almost everywhere. It damages the leafy withers, mainly fruit trees: plum, pear, dogwood, apple, mountain ash, etc. The leaf blades attacked by it dry out rather quickly, and the forming fruits gradually deform and begin to rot
Meet the pest
Vertunya leaf is a variegated butterfly with a wingspan ranging from 9 to 11 mm. Its gray front wings are densely covered with black strokes and are endowed with a transverse whitish oblique stripe and a dark gray field near the bases.
The yellowish eggs of the vertebrate leaf are characterized by an oval shape and reach the size of the order of 0.3 - 0.4 mm. Fusiform caterpillars, which grow up to 5-6 mm in length, are initially distinguished by a black-orange color, and immediately before pupation they are painted in olive-green tones. The prothoracic shields and heads of the caterpillars are black. The size of brownish pupae, located in white cocoons, is about 5 mm.
Harmful caterpillars overwinter under the peeling bark of trunks and branches in tiny cocoons. With the onset of spring, they get out and begin to feed, mercilessly gnawing the inner parts of the swelling buds. And a little later, they damage the leaves with flowers, pulling them into small bunches with the help of a cobweb. As soon as flowering ends, voracious caterpillars move to young shoots of a new growth, attacking the apical leaves. In addition, they often bite into shoots located near the buds, grinding numerous passages into them. Thus, caterpillars feed from twenty to twenty-five days, after which they pupate under the scales of the bark or in the middle of the leaves damaged by them. It usually takes about two weeks for pupae to develop, and butterfly years can be observed already in June or early July.
Females lay eggs on the undersides of the leaves, most often placing them one at a time. The total fertility of pests ranges from one hundred to one and a half hundred eggs. Five to eight days after the laying of eggs, harmful caterpillars revive, immediately penetrating the leaves and gnawing branchy and rather short mines in them. The parasites will live in these mines until the onset of autumn. And as soon as autumn comes, they will begin to move from mines to wintering places. Throughout the year, a single generation of pests manages to develop.
How to fight
If about 3 - 5% of the blossoming buds are damaged by the leaf verticulum, the fruit trees begin to be treated with insecticides. The most suitable for this purpose will be organophosphorus drugs used against other species of moths. And if in the summer more than one mine of feeding caterpillars begins to fall on one leaf, then they must be destroyed with the help of systemic insecticides. It is also allowed to carry out treatments with biological preparations. By the way, some summer residents are not unsuccessfully using light traps against these pests.
It helps well in the fight against vertebrate leaf and yarrow broth. To prepare it, 250 g of yarrow is poured with two liters of water, after which it is boiled over low heat for five minutes. Then the broth is cooled and filtered thoroughly. Immediately before spraying, the broth is diluted with cold water in an amount of 7, 5 liters and sent to the garden. As a rule, such treatments are carried out during the period of massive invasions of harmful parasites.
And as soon as autumn comes, the bark on tree trunks should be thoroughly cleaned, and then the trunks should be whitewashed with lime, to which a small amount of copper sulfate has been added. This measure will help protect the bark from cracking and frost.
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