2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Apion, or clover weevil, is found in almost all latitudes. His food preferences include clover, both wild and cultivated. The larvae of these parasites, which gnaw holes in receptacles for subsequent pupation, are especially harmful, as a result of which the vessels feeding the flowers are damaged. And this, in turn, leads to complete or partial browning of the flowers and to their subsequent drying out. Adult bugs are also quite harmful, feeding on delicate clover leaves and gnawing numerous holes in them. In the years of mass reproduction, leaf apions are often pierced with holes
Meet the pest
Apiona is a harmful black weevil beetle, the size of which ranges from 3 to 3.5 mm. Its pear-shaped body is characterized by a pronounced metallic shade. All individuals are endowed with almost straight long rostrum and partly yellow legs. These bugs have very interesting antennae - their bases are usually red, and the tops are black.
Apion eggs range in size from 0.3 to 0.5 mm. The eggs laid by these parasites are usually smooth, elongated and yellowish in color. And the larvae of the pests are white with a slight creamy tint. In length, they grow up to 2 - 2, 5 mm. All larvae have dark brown heads and are slightly curved. Their upper jaws are equipped with three outgrowths on each side, with the middle outgrowths usually slightly enlarged. And the legs of the larvae are replaced by as many as six pairs of small bizarre mounds. As for the pupae of pests, they are characterized by a yellowish-white color and reach a length of 3 - 3.5 mm.
Beetles overwinter on clover crops, at a depth of up to five centimeters in the soil. Part of the pests hibernates on the borderlands, on the forest edges, on the roadside, in the ravines and in the forest belts. As a rule, in such shelters, they are deployed under the remains of plants and under fallen leaves. The exit of gluttonous parasites from wintering sites usually starts in the first and second decades of April, when clover begins to grow. For fifteen to twenty-one days, they feed on the parenchyma of young leaves, while gnawing numerous tiny holes. And at the stage of clover budding (approximately in the second half of May), females begin to lay one egg each, placing them in the rudimentary heads, as well as in flower and lateral leaf buds.
The average fertility of each female is about thirty-five eggs, while the minimum threshold is 11 eggs, and the maximum is 217. To lay eggs, females have to gnaw holes with the help of rostrum and push the eggs into them with the ovipositor. The embryonic development of eggs takes from five to eight days. The first larvae hatch even before flowering begins (approximately at the end of May and at the beginning of June), and during the period of mass flowering, somewhere in the second decade of June, it is already possible to find not only larvae of different ages, but also tiny pupae.
In the conditions of the forest-steppe, the development of voracious larvae takes from fifteen to twenty days. Immediately before pupation, they leave the ovary and go to the receptacle of the clover heads, concentrating in the intervals between the flowers. Here they gnaw holes and pupate in them. Pupal development takes about eight to nine days. And the entire development cycle, from the egg stage to the adult stage, takes thirty to thirty-two days. From the second half of July until September (and sometimes until October), you can observe the appearance of bugs, actively feeding on young clover leaves.
In one season, only one generation of clover weevils develops, but each beetle is able to live and actively reproduce for two to three years.
How to fight
The main preventive measure against apiona is following the rules of crop rotation. It is recommended to place clover testes at a distance of at least half a kilometer from forage crops.
If for every ten strokes of the net there are twenty individuals of the pest, they switch to spraying with insecticides. At the budding stage, clover is usually treated with Fufanon and Diazinon.
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