Variegated Bark Beetle

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Video: Variegated Bark Beetle

Video: Variegated Bark Beetle
Video: How mites can save trees from bark beetle outbreaks 2024, May
Variegated Bark Beetle
Variegated Bark Beetle
Anonim
Variegated bark beetle
Variegated bark beetle

The variegated ash bark beetle lives almost everywhere. This nondescript pest damages not only ash - often lilacs with unpretentious hazels, as well as maple and beech, mighty oaks and walnuts, suffer from its invasions. Apple trees with pears do not go unnoticed either. In order to protect valuable trees and field-protective plantations from serious damage, you need to fight to death with ash bark beetles. Only in this case can the desired results be achieved

Variegated ash bark beetle

Ash bark beetle is an extremely harmful bug ranging in size from 2.5 to 3.5 mm. All pests are black, densely covered with tiny light-colored scales folding into variegated patterns and endowed with brownish elytra with rather deep speckled grooves and pronotum tapering to the heads. And the abdomens of the evil bark beetles are cut obliquely towards the tops of the elytra.

White legless larvae, growing up to 3 - 3, 5 mm, are slightly bent to the sides of the abdomen, and their tiny bodies are covered with sparse hairs. The size of free pupae, located in white translucent shells, is about 3 - 3.5 mm.

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Beetles overwinter in groups, conveniently located in the bark of the butt parts of trees, sometimes even below the soil level. Approximately in the third decade of April, their years starts, lasting until mid-June. All the bugs that come out feed additionally, gnawing numerous passages near the buds and in the pliable forks of the branches. Felled and weak trees are especially loved by gluttonous parasites - in most cases, ash bark beetles are attracted by the middle parts of the trunks with a thin transitional bark. However, they do not disdain thick branches either. The length of the uterine passages, constantly laid by pests, ranges from two and a half to eight centimeters. Often, these passages also penetrate the sapwood, and on the fallen trees they are characterized by different directions, and on standing ones they go from the bottom up.

The embryonic development of laid eggs usually takes twenty-four or twenty-five days. The reborn larvae quickly gnaw through intersecting and very densely located passages, the length of which reaches from three to six centimeters. Larval development takes about two months.

Malicious pupae place their nests in sapwood with little penetration into the wood. And at the end of June, and in July too, the bulk of the gluttonous bugs comes out. At the same time, a certain percentage of larvae with pupae remains until August.

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The bugs that have chosen for the purpose of additional nutrition instantly bite into the bark, eating out in it countless mine passages of an irregular shape - there most of the ash bark beetles remain until spring. And in those places where they gnawed into the wood and additionally fed, numerous painful influxes appear. Ash bark beetles are characterized by annual generation.

Fight against bark beetle

The state of field-protective plantations requires constant monitoring and supervision. It is not forbidden to attract various insectivorous birds - woodpeckers are especially fond of ash bark beetles. In addition, it is necessary to constantly control pests, whose activities contribute to a significant weakening of trees. In extreme cases, it is allowed to treat the trees with insecticides.

In addition to birds, ash bark beetles have other natural enemies - predatory bugs actively feed on the laid eggs of pests, as well as pupae and larvae that have settled in the passages. Do not mind eating harmful bark beetles and some predatory bugs belonging to the most diverse families. And also pupae with larvae are often infected by braconids, so ash bark beetles also have plenty of natural enemies.

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