2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The strawberry leaf beetle, which lives almost everywhere, damages wild and cultivated strawberries, as well as a number of shrubs and herbaceous plants representing the Rosanny family (meadowsweet, gravilat, cinquefoil goose, etc.). Berry bushes damaged by a strawberry leaf beetle are easy to distinguish from healthy ones: the leaves on them are dotted with a huge number of small holes, and tiny berries stop developing. Damaged bushes dry up, over time, almost all ovaries die, and the taste of the surviving berries changes greatly
Meet the pest
The strawberry leaf beetle is a yellow-brown beetle with a black belly and metasternum, the length of which ranges from 3.5 to 4.2 mm. The elytra of this pest are uniformly convex.
The size of the spherical eggs of strawberry leaf beetles is approximately 0.5 - 0.6 mm. Initially, they are painted in a reddish-yellowish color, and then gradually acquire a reddish-yellow color and acquire black rod-shaped appendages on the tops. The length of the yellow-brown larvae is 5 - 6 mm. All larvae are equipped with rows of bristled warts and transverse stripes, as well as black heads and legs. And the dimensions of the pale yellowish pupae are within 3, 5 - 4 mm.
Immature beetles overwinter mainly under the remains of vegetation. In the spring, around the second half of April, when the thermometer rises to 13-14 degrees, the bugs emerging from the wintering grounds begin additional feeding - they skeletonize the leaves, and also gnaw out numerous and rather winding holes in them. Much less often, strawberry leaf beetles damage leaf petioles and inflorescences with flowers.
At the stage of bud extension, harmful females begin to lay eggs - one or two eggs at a time. Lay their pests in the holes, previously gnawed in the lower sides of the leaves. It should be noted that the period of oviposition in these parasites is extended to thirty - forty five days, and the total fecundity of females reaches 150 - 200 eggs. As for the stage of embryonic development, it takes from twelve to twenty days. The reborn larvae also begin to skeletonize the leaves, and upon completion of their feeding, they move to the surface soil layer closer to the vegetation, where they subsequently pupate. 8 - 12 days after pupation, beetles appear, feeding on leaves for some time. A little later, they go to winter in earthen cradles. Only one generation of strawberry leaf beetles manages to develop per year.
How to fight
The larvae of these pests of strawberries are readily eaten by predatory bugs and ground beetles. Pupae are infected by riders called Tetrastichus cassidarum Rizb, and eggs by riders called Entedon ovularum Rizb.
An important measure to combat strawberry leaf beetles is the timely removal of all kinds of plant debris from the site, on which these pests like to winter. Also, during the period of mass pupation of harmful larvae, the soil near the plants should be dug up - this will destroy the so-called "cradles" of pupae, as well as make pests defenseless against various diseases and available to all kinds of predators. It is equally important to weed out meadowsweet and cinquefoil growing near strawberry beds - pests often feed on them. And, of course, one should not forget about the rules of crop rotation - strawberries can return to their previous beds only after three to four years, not earlier.
Periodically, strawberry plantings are treated with various stimulating substances in order to compensate for crop losses. Also, in early spring (so that the berries do not acquire a persistent tobacco smell), it is recommended to dust the strawberry beds with tobacco crumbs.
If at the very beginning of the growth of strawberry bushes there are more than two or three beetles for every five plants, then spraying with insecticides will be advisable.
Before the start of flowering, berry bushes may be sprayed with Karbofos (10%). Also, a good effect can be achieved when using the drug "Karate". And when new leaves grow in the spring, they use the preparations Vofatox, Metaphos, Gardona, Korsar, Ambush and Actellik. It is especially important to get on the undersides of the leaves during spraying.
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