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Your garden is immersed in a wellness winter sleep. You also want to take a break from gardening troubles, however …
Your eyes are caught by the flickering of grayish-yellow wings in the air - this is a winter moth. Life does not end even in winter, it only freezes for a while. Caterpillars of the winter moth are malicious pests that can cause considerable harm to fruit and other deciduous trees. The garden only looks pristine outwardly. But take a closer look: the bark burst and moved away from the trunk, the wound on a thick branch was poorly tightened, the remnants of leaves spread out as a blanket below, and there larvae and adult insects were safely hidden there. If you are careful, you will see the enemies of the garden even in winter.
© di_the_huntress 3 tips
for tree care
- do not forget to clean the stems of fruit trees from mosses and lichens,
- carefully heal wounds in trees,
- coat the trunks with slaked lime
Enemy nests
On the branches of trees, dry leaves are securely fixed with spider webs. Such nests are left by the hawthorn and goldtail. In each nest, wrapped in dense white cocoons, caterpillars hibernate: the hawthorn has 10-70 caterpillars, the golden-tail has 200-300 caterpillars. These nests must be collected and burned in the winter. If they are high, do so with a hooked pole. The white-silvery cocoons around the buds are the winter flats of the budworm caterpillars. The thin tops of the shoots should be cut off along with the nests.
Inspect the trees
On careful examination of trees, you can see a cluster of eggs of the rosacea, arranged in rings or groups on the smooth bark of trunks and branches, near the buds. One cannot help but marvel at the care of the parents. The winter moth butterfly, apple sucker, cherry aphid took care to arrange the testicles so that the awakened children, as soon as the weather permits, began to process the young buds and sticky leaves. Located openly, eggs are not afraid of frost at all. For example, egg clutches of ringed silkworm can withstand -35-50 ° C! Insects try to preserve the offspring as much as possible, reliably hiding it in cracks in the bark, hollows and folds of a tree. This is how the eggs of the gray apple and plum aphids, adults of the apple blossom beetle, and the pear honey beetle winter.
Keep in mind
Lazy to remove fallen leaves, we provide a cozy bed for garden pests. Under a warm blanket, the places of the larvae of sawflies and weevils, pupae and caterpillars of butterflies, and fruit moths will be peacefully distributed. Such a communal apartment is not to the liking of only such individualists as Maiskii Khrushch. The larvae and adult beetles of this species are able to go into the soil for the winter to a depth of 1 meter, which greatly complicates the fight against them.
Don't ignore autumn pruning, which promotes fruit bud formation. Don't forget that a well-formed tree is less susceptible to disease and is able to withstand the onslaught of pests.
