2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The poplar leaf beetle is an incredibly cute pest that actively damages not only all varieties of poplar, but also the beautiful willow. Massively multiplying gluttonous parasites are very harmful to young and not yet matured plantations. Noticing harmful poplar leaf beetles on the trees, you must immediately take all the necessary measures to get rid of these scoundrels as soon as possible
Meet the pest
The poplar leaf beetle is a charming beetle that ranges in size from 10 to 12 mm. Pests are usually colored blue or green and endowed with spectacular and slightly blackened in the corners, black-yellow or red elytra. And the suture corners of their elytra are equipped with small black dots.
Yellowish oval eggs of poplar leaf beetles are about 1.5 mm in size. And the larvae growing from 8 to 12 mm in length are characterized by a yellowish-whitish color and are endowed with black heads and legs. All over the body of each individual are randomly scattered tiny black spots and warts. The color of adult larvae can vary from grayish-whitish to pale greenish shades. Another characteristic feature of the harmful poplar leaf beetles is that the smell of their larvae vaguely resembles the smell of cinnamon. As for the yellowish-white pupae decorated with black patterns, their size is about 11 mm. And the tips of the bodies of all pupae are strongly pointed.
Immature voracious bugs overwinter either on the soil surface or under fallen leaves. With the onset of spring, they get out of their hiding places - as a rule, this happens in the first ten days of May, when the air warms up to twelve or thirteen degrees. Pests immediately begin additional nutrition, actively gnawing gaping through holes in the developing leaves. At the same time, with special pleasure they harm the young growth.
Fertilized females begin to lay eggs, placing them on the lower sides of the leaves in compact heaps, each of which has from two to six dozen eggs. And the total fertility of the pests is from two hundred and twenty to five hundred eggs. The embryonic development of eggs takes on average eight to twelve days.
The reborn larvae at first try to stick together, skeletonizing juicy leaves together. And a little later, as they grow, the gluttonous scoundrels begin to creep in all directions. They also feed separately, making through holes in the foliage. In time, the development of larvae takes from sixteen to twenty days. Approximately in the first half of June, they begin to pupate, and they do it in a head-down position. The additionally harmful bugs that have come out actively feed and begin to lay eggs closer to the end of July or in the beginning of August. The second generation of larvae finishes developing in September, after which the pests pupate again. And after eight or ten days, new bugs appear, remaining to winter in litters built on their own. Two generations of poplar leaf beetles usually develop each year. By the way, in addition to them, poplar leaves, together with elm leaves, often damage elm and aspen leaf beetles.
These pests can be encountered mainly in Primorye, Siberia and the European part of Russia (with the exception of the Far North).
How to deal with the leaf beetle
If poplar leaf beetles began to multiply en masse, all growing trees begin to immediately be treated with insecticides. It is most advisable to carry out such treatments during the period of active feeding of the larvae.
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