2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The common cereal aphid on the territory of Russia is most often found in the steppe and in the south of the forest-steppe zone, and in other areas it can be seen in large quantities extremely rarely. It damages, as a rule, rye, rice, sorghum, oats, barley, wheat and Sudanese grass. Sometimes this pest can feed on a fairly large number of wild-growing cereals. And the common cereal aphid lives in solid colonies on the upper and lower surfaces of cereal leaves. Plants in places of damage usually discolor, and sometimes even blush. In addition, the common cereal aphid is a carrier of all kinds of viral ailments of cereal crops
Meet the pest
The size of the wingless females of the common grass aphid ranges from 2.7 to 2.9 mm. They have a light color and are endowed with green longitudinal stripes running in the middle of the backs. Their cylindrical long tubes are usually not swollen and rather light. The founding females look more slender and are endowed with oval abdomens and almost rectangular backs.
The oval eggs of the common cereal aphid are about 0.6 mm in size. Freshly laid eggs are always painted in greenish tones, and after some time (usually after two or three days) they darken and eventually turn black. Eggs are laid in small piles, each of which contains from two to four pieces.
Eggs usually overwinter on leaves of wild-growing cereals and seedlings of winter crops. The larvae hatching in the spring are selected from the overwintered eggs at about the beginning of April or in the middle of it, and at the end of the fourth molt they turn into wingless founding females. If the weather is dry and warm, then they multiply quite massively, and in the southern regions - especially (where their harmfulness is much higher). It is noteworthy that in just one growing season, ordinary cereal aphids are able to develop in ten to twelve generations. The total fertility of each female is about twelve eggs. In the summer period, the duration of the stay of the common cereal aphid in the larval stage is from eight to fifteen days. In the second generation, the appearance of settler females forming new colonies is additionally noted.
Initially, the common cereal aphid concentrates on the young upper leaves, on which discolored specks can be seen as a result of the suction of juices from them. If the damage is especially severe, then the leaves may even turn yellow and dry out. And gluttonous parasites reach the greatest mass at the stage of earing of grain crops - they very quickly populate spikelets and suck out juices from a wide variety of their parts, which in turn leads to their barrenness and white ears.
How to fight
A good preventive measure in the fight against common cereal aphids is the use of early maturing varieties. Careful observance of crop rotation is equally important. It is periodically recommended to introduce nitrogen-containing fertilizers into the soil. Mineral fertilizers, balanced in terms of potassium and phosphorus, have also proven themselves excellently. Winter plowing, stubble plowing and the elimination of carrion along with grass weeds will also be very useful.
If the number of common cereal aphids on the site is especially high, then they begin to treat the crops with various insecticides. Typically, spraying and edge treatments are carried out at the stage of filling the grains. The preparations "Eforia" and "Karate Zeon" are best suited for this purpose. Also, crops can be sprayed with such means as "Break", "Aliot", "Borey", "Sirocco" and "Shar Pei".
Natural enemies of the common cereal aphid, destroying it in rather large quantities, are coccinelids (both larvae and adults), as well as chrysopae, hoverfly larvae, rove beetles, ground beetles and predatory bugs from the families Anthocoridae, Nabidae and Miridae. And with a sufficiently high humidity, these harmful parasites can also infect entomophthora fungi.
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