2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The apple sucker in huge quantities inhabits the northwestern regions of Russia, as well as woodland. It damages mainly apple trees, but mountain ash and pear can also suffer from it. Under the influence of enzymes of her saliva, as well as due to the suction of juices, the leaves look underdeveloped, and their surface area is 7-10 times less than the standard. And if the damage is significant, then the fruit buds for the harvest of the new season are formed very weakly, which in turn will significantly reduce the volume of the long-awaited harvest
Meet the pest
The apple sucker is interesting in that immediately after fledging, it acquires a green-bluish color, and a little later it becomes bright straw-yellow. Females subsequently, closer to the onset of autumn, also turn black. The filamentous tendrils of these formidable enemies of apple trees end in two small bristles. They are also endowed with hind jumping legs and two pairs of small transparent wings folded at rest like a roof.
The size of the eggs of harmful apple suckers is 0.3 - 0.4 mm. They are usually orange-yellowish, oval, with tiny stems at slightly blunt tips. The flat and extremely inactive larvae of this parasite are dark orange at the first instar. After some time, they change their color to light brownish or light yellow. Another distinctive feature is their very bright eyes. The length of light-colored nymphs with a slightly convex body and with a slight bluish tint is about 1.5 - 1.8 mm.
Fertilized eggs overwinter on the shoots. The voracious larvae revived in the spring for three to four days feed first openly, and later, when the buds begin to bloom, they move inside and suck out the juice there from the young leaves that have not yet unfolded. And a little later, they begin to stick to the leaf petioles and pedicels. In general, the revival of the larvae of this population takes from twelve to fifteen days and ends at the stage of separation of the buds. In total, the development of larvae takes about 29 - 38 days. Before fledging, nymphs move to the lower sides of the leaves and molt there. And after their fledging, usually on the eighth or thirteenth days after the flowering of late-ripening varieties, they quickly fly away and start feeding on the flowers of herbaceous plants. Towards the end of August or September, they return again to the apple trees, where the females lay eggs upon completion of mating. At the same time, they immerse the processes of these eggs in the cracks of the branches or in the tissue of the bark located near the bases of the fruit buds. The total fertility of female apple sucker is 400 - 500 eggs. The development of these pests occurs only in one generation.
The apple sucker sucks the juice from the leaves, and the sugary rather sticky excrement released in a significant amount, spreading and forming a sticky mass, sticks together the delicate inner parts of tiny buds quite strongly, and also clogs the stomata of the leaves. Ovaries, flowers and buds crumble as a result. The development of saprophytic fungi is also noted in the contaminated areas. In winter, shoots freeze on weakened trees.
For the development and mass reproduction of apple sucker, high humidity in the spring, as well as its rather moderate temperature, will be ideal.
How to fight
Natural enemies of apple suckers are ticks, spiders, predatory bugs, ground beetles and sirphid flies. A fairly large part of the larvae also die during the late spring frosts.
If the number of parasite eggs begins to exceed ten to twenty pieces for every ten centimeters of shoots, then before the spring budding, when the air temperature exceeds 4 degrees, they start spraying the trees. And against the larvae, when the number of individuals exceeds 4 - 8 per outlet, they are treated with various insecticides.
Also, in the spring, prophylactic spraying with a solution of laundry soap with the addition of wood ash and extracts from shag or yarrow will be appropriate. And at the fledging stage of apple suckers, fumigation with tobacco smoke is allowed. Such fumigation is carried out for two to three hours. To do this, about 2 kg of tobacco waste is added to the dry grass collected in small heaps. Since at the end of such a treatment, a fairly large number of pests crumble, you should immediately dig up the soil under the trees so that the apple suckers do not have time to rise on them again.
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