How To Deal With Colorado Beetles Without Pesticides? Biologicals And Folk Methods. Photo

2023 Author: Ava Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 07:13

On the one hand, for the potatoes that came to us from another hemisphere, I must say thank you to America. On the other hand, when Colorado beetles eat up its leaves along with their unpleasant baby larvae, you do not feel any gratitude, but on the contrary, all sorts of bad words creep into your head. And, most importantly, they don't have enough potatoes! Eggplants are somehow devoured - only the crunch is worth it! In general, to attack. How to deal with it so that without negative consequences for yourself and your loved ones, I will tell you in this article.

Content:

• Who actually eats our potatoes?
• How to discourage them?
• How not to let foreign Colorado beetles into your area?
• Biologicals against the Colorado potato beetle
• Folk ways to poison the life of beetles
• Who else can help in the fight against beetles?

Who actually eats our potatoes?

Only eggs of the Colorado potato beetle, bright, yellow-orange in color, hang in a bunch on the back of a potato leaf (or some other nightshade plant) and do not eat anything for one or two weeks. But immediately after leaving the egg, the larvae are attacked by zhor: they eat, first of all, the egg shell and can at the same time grab several neighboring eggs with embryos. After finishing their relatives who did not have time to hatch, they begin to eat the leaf on which they sit, and bring it to a skeletal state.

During growth, the larvae molt three times, gaining more and more appetite, and at the last larval instar (yellow-orange in color) they eat, no longer stopping, day and night. If the leaves on one plant run out, they move to another.

At the same time, the younger group (red larvae) eats the leaf from the lower side, where the eggs were attached, the middle group eats everything to the veins. This is a group lesson for them. The elders become individualists and move to neighboring stems and even neighboring bushes. For two or three weeks, having managed to eat most of the bush, with a clear conscience they burrow into the soil for pupation. It is shallow, about 10 centimeters. And for one or two decades they lay there, turning into adult insects.

Adult beetles gnaw potato beetles (eggplant, physalis, tobacco and other nightshades) with a little less passion than the younger generation, but they are also quite active. At least they don't eat at night.

How to discourage them?

There will be no talk about pesticides, especially systemic ones, there are more than enough of them in store-bought potatoes. There are many ways to drive away beetles or not let them on your potatoes, it remains to choose according to the conditions of your site and personal preferences.

It should be noted right away that the events should be seasonal, comprehensive, and there is no need to lose vigilance: even if everyone has exhausted their beetles, neighbors or even from another area may well fly in - they fly pretty well, especially in the wind.

It is worth starting in the fall, when the beetles will bury themselves in the soil, going to bed for the winter. Possessing a good sense of smell, which allows them to find their favorite nightshades by their aroma, the beetles do not tolerate the smell of rotting onion husks (here I agree with them, a disgusting smell). That is, if you scatter onion tops, onion skins and rotten bulbs over the area, you can force the beetles to look for another place to sleep. Stores are happy to share husk and rotting onions.

In addition to onions, beetles do not like the smells of strong-smelling plants: wormwood, mint, garlic, lemon balm, tagetes, dill, coriander, thyme, basil, chrysanthemums. It is useful to mulch potatoes with this fragrant tops already from June, because beetles of the first generation also partially hibernate. And it is they who, having slept off, will bring the maximum harm next year. They hibernate, by the way, at a depth of 20-50 cm, even digging does not help.

After digging up the potatoes, all these residues are nice to be embedded in the soil. Or leave on top. But do not leave potato tops - with its smell it will attract neighbors or just beetles flying by.

A very good way to improve the potato plot is to sow oilseed radish as a subwinter green manure. It is cold-resistant, gives a powerful leaf mass, remarkably suppresses weeds (including wheatgrass), and root secretions contribute to the destruction of nematodes, a decrease in the number of wireworms and the Colorado potato beetle, which does not like cruciferous smells and will not go there for the winter. Beetles that are already in the soil will try to leave such an unpleasant place that does not smell of potatoes in the spring.

These measures, however, do not mean that there will be no beetles in the soil at all. Beetles are cunning and some clever people hibernate even for 2-3 years, so there are beetles of last year and the year before last in the soil. When planting potatoes, they are dared by adding onion skins to the hole again.

How not to let foreign Colorado beetles into your area?

To change their place of residence, as well as to develop neighboring areas that have not yet been eaten, beetles show a special tendency in summer (in hot weather) and before wintering. At this time, they fly almost in flocks. A new place of residence is chosen, as already mentioned, by smell. So if a variety of odorous plants are evenly planted over the potatoes, the beetles may not sniff out the potatoes themselves. Dill, coriander, anise, sown over potatoes, will not interfere with it, they will give fragrant greens, scare off a beetle, and their remains can be embedded in the soil.

Borders and edging from ornamental plants - tagetes, nasturtium, chrysanthemums, as well as perennial and annual onions will also make a significant contribution to the disorientation of pests. Beans and beans also help. Agastakhe and basil perilla are fragrant with a strong specific aroma, it makes sense to plant them nearby. At the same time there will be a spice.

For the last two years, in the summer from the beginning of the flowering of potatoes, we spray the potato area with liquid smoke, having previously diluted it with water in a ratio of 1:10. For all living things, the smell of smoke means "save yourself, who can!" The beetles that wander from site to site at this time, apparently, try to fly past such a "terrible" place, because I find no more than two or three of them, a week or two after spraying. They are collected and destroyed by hand, the eggs, if found, too.

During the flight period, the beetles can be sprayed weekly, but we do not have such a need: the seedlings remaining after the main planting grow on the potatoes, dill and cilantro are planted nearby, which are sown as they are spent. Peanuts also grow between potato bushes, but they have nothing to do with beetles. Chrysanthemum bushes are planted on one side of the potato plot. Well, and mulching, of course.

By the way, four years ago, when we began to develop our Kuban plot, in the first summer the beetles ate all our potatoes. That is, the potato site turned out to be very contaminated.

Biologicals against the Colorado potato beetle

It is much more difficult to fight with adult beetles than with larvae, and there are no effective biological products that completely exterminate beetles. But the larvae of an early age, which have not yet had time to inflict tangible harm, but their number is already frightening, can be completely exterminated. The drugs "Bitoxibacillin", "Bicol" successfully cope with the insatiable beetle kids when they are still red. With yellows they do a little worse. So, we must seize the moment.

Bacterial preparations for the destruction of the larva must get into her intestines. That is, you need to spray not the larvae themselves, but the leaves of the potatoes that they will eat. But the drug will just as successfully cope with many others, including beneficial insects and their larvae, accidentally swallowing droplets of liquid on the leaves or having bitten the leaf.

Adult insects, older larvae are not poisoned by this, and some even acquire immunity. Biological products do not affect pupae, since they are in the ground and do not eat. Based on this, it is necessary to spray regularly, monitoring the appearance of new larvae.

"Fitoverm" (active ingredient "Aversectin C" - fungal toxins, avermectins) can penetrate into the larvae through the outer integument or when eating the treated leaves. The larvae do not die immediately, but after 3-6 days. But they stop eating leaves after a day.

With adult beetles, it also does not work out very well, so the treatments must be repeated as new larvae appear. For beneficial insects, except for beetles, the biological product is toxic for their larvae too. And toxic to bees.

But biological products do not accumulate in fruits, do not poison the soil and water.

Folk ways to poison the life of beetles

Most popular methods are focused on making potato leaves tasteless or inedible for beetles and their children. And these activities begin from the moment the first "swallows" are found, that is, beetles.

Wood ash is a simple and tried-and-true remedy, but you need a lot of it: a 10-liter bucket per hundred square meters when dusting the bushes and the earth around (in the morning, in the dew, so that it sticks). For spraying, less is needed: about 200 g per 10 liters. water, a little soap, leave for a day, drain and spray. And so once every 2 weeks.

Whoever has a walnut growing and there are branches that interfere, you can put them into action: fill a 2/3 bucket with leaves, pour boiling water over it, leave for a week, strain, add soap and spray. To dry the branches themselves and toss them when frying a barbecue - very aromatic.

Birch tar - 100 g per 10 liters of water, let it infuse for a day.

Infusion of onion peel -300 g per 10 l, pour hot water, leave for 24 hours.

Bitter wormwood infusion: 300 g per 10 liters, pour hot water too, leave for 24 hours, drain and spray - they definitely will not eat such bitterness, they will rather die of hunger or move to eggplant. Likewise - tansy flowers.

Decoction of hot pepper: cook 100 g of pods in 10 liters of water for an hour, cool, strain, stir with soap and spray. You can take a store-bought pepper in powder, also 100 g, pour boiling water over and leave for a day. Beetles are not Mexicans, to eat such peppery - they will definitely not like it!

Broth celandine: half a bucket of grass boil 15 minutes, drain the, diluted 1:20 in water.

Mustard is also tasteless for beetles, so 200 g of dry mustard can be poured with warm water, let it stand for a day, strain, pour in 100 g of vinegar (9%).

You can make mixtures from any of the specified components. It is advisable to add soap for sticking to any infusion or decoction. Carry out the processing in the morning or evening on dry leaves and repeat once a week. It is better to alternate the preparations so that the beetles do not get used to it.

Who else can help in the fight against beetles?

The best feathered helpers are the guinea fowl. This is the only bird that voluntarily eats Colorado beetles and considers it a delicacy. At least, I regularly watched as neighbors' birds, released in the morning, busily walk in a crowd to the potato field and graze there all day, quite successfully catching pests. Turkeys and feverolles can be taught to do this by adding crushed beetles to the feed.

If insecticides are not used on the site, then voluntary and disinterested helpers will definitely start there. Ground beetles: copper pecilus, which eats eggs and young larvae during the day, common pterostich, which prefers to eat, again, eggs and young larvae, but already at night, common bighead, which eats beetles at all stages of development at night (a very rare occurrence). These ground beetles live in the European part of Russia and Western Siberia.

The eggs of the Colorado potato beetle are eaten by ladybugs and their larvae, lacewing, antacorid bugs (black orius).

Hunter bugs (predatory nabis, similar nabis), shield bugs (blue zicron, carnivorous arma, common pterostich), spiders eat both eggs and larvae, which they can cope with.

The predatory perillus bug, imported from North America, has been added to the local bugs and in the southern part of European Russia. With an enviable appetite: the bug larva eats up to 250 beetle eggs, the adult bug - up to 3000! It is already grown artificially for production in potato fields, because organic products are appreciated everywhere.

However, not only perillus are grown, but also two-toothed picromeriuses, completely common in Russia, deftly destroying a huge number of various insects and their larvae. Both adult beetles and larvae hunt. Colorado beetles are eaten in any form: eggs, larvae of all ages, adult beetles. Group hunting is in progress.

And, finally, the cherry on the cake: in some of the plants of the Bashkir potato variety, the ability to die off of leaf tissues in the zone of laying eggs of the Colorado potato beetle was found (after all, the plants also protect themselves as they can). By the time the larvae hatch, a piece of the leaf dies off and falls to the ground. The varieties "Nevsky", "Udacha" also sometimes develop necrosis in the egg-laying zone, but more slowly and the larvae manage to eat it. Breeders have a chance to develop a variety that actively resists the pest.