2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Root leafhoppers damage a huge number of crops - cereals, cabbage with potatoes, peas, beets and many others. This is a rather dangerous pest, which is at the same time a carrier of the harmful sugar beet mosaic virus. Under natural conditions, root leafhoppers often live on reeds. Sucking sap from plants, these parasites destroy young shoots, and also prune tender shoots with ovipositor. Therefore, it is very important to take all necessary measures against them in a timely manner
Meet the pest
Root leafhoppers are insects with a flattened body, equipped with a wide and short front back, a slightly rounded front edge, and a short head. And the size of the imago of root leafhoppers is in the range from 6 to 9 mm. The length of the light gray flat-folded wings slightly exceeds the length of the abdomen. The scutes of these pests are black, the hind legs are jumping, and the abdomens are slightly flattened and short.
The size of the white shiny eggs of root leafhoppers is approximately 0.6 mm. And in light-brownish larvae 7-10 mm long, the front part of the body is slightly darker than the back one.
Larvae of the third and fourth centuries usually hibernate at a depth of five to twenty centimeters in the soil. With the arrival of the April heat, they begin to feed on beet roots left in the soil. And a little later they turn their attention to the roots of vegetables sown later on beets. The larvae that have reached the fifth century in early June are transformed into adults in cracks in the soil. They begin to fly from mid-June and do this until the very beginning of August, feeding on leaves of sugar beet and a number of other crops. The damaged areas are discolored and appear as whitish specks.
Females begin to lay eggs in cracks in the soil at the end of June, as well as in July. They usually do this at a depth of four to ten centimeters. Each oviposition, covered with a waxy soft fluff, contains about 60 - 70 eggs. The total fertility of females per season is about 170 eggs.
After 14 - 16 days, the larvae of the root leafhopper revive, which begin to populate the cultivated root crops with whole colonies, each of them numbering from ten to twenty individuals.
The pheromones of saliva introduced by root leafhoppers into the tissues of vegetation, as well as the suction of nutritional juices of adults and harmful larvae, help to restrain the growth and development of crops, the sugar content of various root crops and a significant decrease in yield. Seed germination is also noticeably reduced.
The feeding of harmful larvae does not stop until the onset of cold weather. The larvae that have reached the third or fourth century remain in the soil until spring. And when the temperature in wintering places drops to minus five degrees, the larvae die. A significant part of them also perish if the spring is rainy and cold. Throughout the year, a single generation of root leafhoppers develops.
There are over twelve varieties of leafhoppers that damage sugar beet. The most common are considered to be dark leafhoppers, yellow leafhoppers, yellowish leafhoppers, variegated leafhoppers and some others.
How to fight
The laid eggs, larvae, and also imago of root leafhoppers willingly destroy numerous predatory thrips, as well as bugs from the families Antocoridae and Nabidae, funny ground beetles, spiders and other arthropods. And in the abdomens of these garden pests, larvae, representing the family of flies called Pipunculidae, often parasitize.
When growing various garden crops, it is very important to follow the rules of crop rotation. Weed control and deep autumn plowing are also considered good preventive measures. Sugar beet roots should be completely removed from the plots.
In the first two to three years, in order to scare away root leafhoppers between rows with cultivated garden crops, it is recommended to plant onions and garlic. Also, plantings are periodically sprayed with infusions and decoctions of chamomile, wormwood, burdock and burdock.
They switch to insecticide treatment when five percent of plantations or more are damaged by root leafhoppers. At the same time, the back sides of the leaves should be processed with special care, since it is there that the egg-laying is made by harmful insects. Such preparations as "Benzophosphate", "Aktara", "Fozalon", "Malathion", "Nitrofen", "Faskord" and "Karbofos" have proven themselves well in the fight against root leafhoppers.
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