Yellow-brown Early Scoop

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

The early yellow-brown moth, which mainly damages fruit crops, is found almost everywhere. Cherries with cherries, and thorns with raspberries, and pears with apple trees, and even peaches with plums are equally affected by her invasions. And a little less often, this pest attacks some forest species. If you do not start a timely fight against this scoundrel, harmful caterpillars will destroy a rather impressive part of the crop in the shortest possible time

Meet the pest

The early yellow-brown scoop is a butterfly with wingspan ranging from 32 to 35 mm. The yellowish front wings of the pests are equipped with whitish wavy transverse stripes, and the gray hind wings are framed with an attractive light fringe.

Round eggs of early yellow-brown scoops, equipped with numerous ribs running in the meridional direction and reaching 0.4-0.5 mm in size, are colored yellow. And on their tops, upon close examination, you can see small red spots. The size of the caterpillars reaches about 30 - 40 mm. Their backs are painted in greenish tones, and longitudinal yellow stripes pass along the sides of the pests. As for the pupae, they are chestnut colored and grow to an average of 15 mm. All of them are characterized by a pronounced brilliance and are endowed with rounded conical and inconspicuous small cremasters, crowned at the tops by a pair of row of sitting spines.

The wintering of harmful pupae always takes place in earthen cradles in the soil, and the depth of their occurrence is about five to seven centimeters. With the onset of April, when the tiny apple buds begin to swell, butterflies start flying out. All butterflies fly great and are able to feed additionally. After a while, the females begin to lay eggs, placing them on the bark of boles and shoots in heaps of forty to ninety pieces each. Their total fertility at the same time reaches six hundred to seven hundred eggs. And after seven to ten days, in the phenophase of bud separation, tiny caterpillars begin to revive.

Initially, caterpillars only skeletonize leaves, and a little later they begin to roughly eat them, leaving only cuttings and central veins. They suffer from their destructive activity and ovaries - in them gluttonous parasites gnaw out rather deep numerous pits. During its development, each caterpillar damages at least six to eight leaves and approximately three to four fruits. And their development usually takes from forty to forty-five days.

Towards the end of June or at the beginning of July, caterpillars leave the forage trees, going into the soil - there they form strong earthen cocoons, in which they subsequently pupate. They will remain in them until spring. Throughout the year, a single generation of yellow-brown early moths develops, however, in any case, it causes a lot of harm.

Most often, you can encounter yellow-brown early moths in the European part of Russia, more precisely, in its southern, middle and western regions. These pests are no less common in the Ukrainian expanses, as well as in the Caucasus, Siberia, Western Europe, Japan and Western Asia.

How to fight

In the fall, you should thoroughly cultivate the soil in the near-trunk circles. The same goes for the row spacing. And in summer, during the period of mass pupation of harmful caterpillars, it is necessary to carefully loosen and cultivate the soil.

If about 20 - 25% of the leaves were damaged by early yellow-brown scoops, the trees begin to be treated with biological products or permitted insecticides. When carrying out treatments, it is important to take into account that most of the caterpillars are deployed on the tops of fruit trees.