2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Beet root aphid is an ubiquitous pest that attacks quinoa and other swan plants in addition to beets. It is considered especially dangerous because in a relatively short period of time from May to October, it is capable of giving from eight to ten generations. As a rule, the number of these parasites increases markedly in July and August. The vegetation attacked by them withers and perishes, which has a detrimental effect on the yield of long-awaited root crops
Meet the pest
The size of wingless parthenogenetic females ranges from 2, 1 to 2, 6 mm. Their greenish or yellowish-brown bodies are distinguished by their ovoid shape. The brownish plates of spiracles, legs, antennae and the upper parts of the heads are covered with a wax coating, and small bundles of wax-like filaments can be seen on the tips of the bodies of pests. Ellipse-like slender larvae of the first instar, affectionately called "vagrants", are painted in yellowish-gray or greenish tones, and feeding larvae are, in addition, covered with a waxy bloom.
Winged females are round in shape and grow in length up to 2.5 mm. Their eyes are faceted, the abdomens are light yellow, and the legs, breasts, antennae and heads are distinguished by a black-brown color. As for the males and females of the amphigon generation, they are characterized by the absence of proboscis and wings.
Parthenogenetic wingless sexually mature females overwinter at a depth of sixteen to sixty centimeters in the soil. Most often, they go for the winter to areas contaminated with various haze weeds. And in the spring, when the soil at the depth of occurrence of the pests warms up to ten to twelve degrees, overwintered females revive twenty to thirty larvae each. At the same time, they do not restore their nutrition. In the forest-steppe zone, the larvae revive mainly in May, in the second half of it.
The first instar larvae are remarkable for their incredible mobility. Some of them remain in wintering places on the roots of haze weeds, while all the rest get out onto the soil surface and begin to move at lightning speed in search of forage crops. At the same time, the larvae can often be transferred with water and wind, as well as with tools intended for soil cultivation, thereby contributing to the colonization of new beet crops. After some time, harmful "vagrants" penetrate the beetroot roots into the soil, and, having been sufficiently nourished for ten to twelve days, are transformed into viviparous summer females, the fertility of which reaches from twenty to eighty larvae.
By July-August, the number of beetroot aphids is especially high - a large number of new foci of these gluttonous parasites are formed as a result of the intensive dispersal of nimble "vagrants". And towards the end of August or at the beginning of September, most of the larvae are transformed first into nymphs, and subsequently into winged females. These winged females migrate to poplars, reviving amphigon females and males there. Fertilized females lay several eggs in the cracks in the tree bark. The main part of the eggs laid by them perishes during the winter, and part of the revived larvae perishes in the spring.
How to fight
The main preventive measures against beet root aphids are the elimination of weeds and careful harvesting of root crops. And after harvesting, it is necessary to carry out deep autumn plowing and stubble plowing.
In a crop rotation, beets are best placed after steamed winter wheat. The spatial isolation of beet crops from last year's plantings is no less important.
Before storing the harvested beets for storage, you should carefully sort out all root crops and discard damaged specimens.
If the number of beet root aphids in the area is very high, then the foci of the pest begin to be treated with insecticides.
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