Potato pests: methods of control and prevention

Colorado beetle

This native of distant America, unfortunately, is familiar to absolutely everyone who grows potatoes. The striped aggressor from the family of leaf beetles really liked our climate. Beetles and larvae of the Colorado potato beetle feed on the leaves of representatives of the nightshades: potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, which makes them dangerous agricultural pests.

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This insect goes deep into the soil for the winter, and in the spring it comes out and begins to actively eat the first greenery. Even if you carefully monitor your plot, your potatoes are in danger. This insect actively moves, so it is not difficult for it to travel a hundred meters in the air from a neighboring infected garden to yours.

Plants damaged by the Colorado potato beetle simply dry out, because... lose their ability to absorb moisture and nutrients from the soil.

During a season, the pest can produce several generations (females lay eggs without interruption), and under unfavorable conditions, it can even hibernate for up to three years.

Appearance and symptoms of the presence of the Colorado potato beetle

Externally, the adult insect is a classic “beetle” up to 12 mm long, with a yellow head, a round body and shiny convex elytra with longitudinal stripes. Its larvae are about the same size, bright orange with a black head and two rows of black dots on the sides of the body.

Due to their similar appearance, the harmful larvae of the Colorado potato beetle are often confused with the larvae of the extremely beneficial ladybug. Be careful - the latter are gray, “spiny” with orange spots.

It is easy to detect the Colorado potato beetle; you just need to look closely at the potato leaves. On them (most often along the edges) you can easily notice characteristic traces of the presence of a beetle and its larvae: parts of the leaf have been gnawed off. The larvae feed by moving from the edge of the leaf to its center, gradually destroying the entire leaf blade. At the same time, if you turn over the whole leaves, you can see the beetle’s oviposition from below (many orange eggs tightly located to each other).

Measures to combat the Colorado potato beetle

It is not easy to fight the Colorado potato beetle and its larvae - the pest shows high resistance to poisons and quickly develops immunity to them, and is also poisonous to most birds and animals.

Preventive measures include strict adherence to crop rotation, annual deep autumn digging of the site, planting wormwood, calendula, onions, and hemlock near the potato beds.

If insects have already appeared, you will have to try very hard and apply comprehensive measures. This includes manual collection of beetles and larvae with their destruction outside the site, placement of traps with potato peelings, treatment of crops with folk remedies (birch tar solution, a mixture of soap and ash), as well as the use of chemical insecticides (Fitoverm, Aktara, Corado, Golden Iskra, etc. .P.).

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Causes of pests

The rich nutritional content of potatoes attracts insects. Pests eat not only tubers, but also potato tops; in addition, they are carriers of dangerous diseases. As a result of the harmful activity of insects, potatoes stop developing and may die. Damaged fruits are unsuitable for storage.

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The reasons for the appearance of pests in a potato field can be as follows:

crop rotation was disrupted, that is, crops were grown in one place for a long time;
the insects were in the soil, during digging they crawled out and waited for the potatoes to ripen;
you planted low-quality tubers or tubers infected with larvae.

If pests appear in the garden, it is necessary to immediately take measures to destroy them.

Miner / Mine

Medvedka

This large omnivorous insect is sometimes popularly called “earthen crayfish” for the shape and size of its front legs. Mole cricket is dangerous for absolutely all plants in the garden. This pest eats or damages root vegetables, potatoes, roots and bulbs of flowers, shrubs and trees. Both adults and larvae are capable of digging their burrows near plant seedlings and dragging them underground to eat.

An insect can enter a site either on its own or with imported fertilizer or soil. The mole cricket leads an underground lifestyle, eating everything it comes across on the way to digging its passages and holes. It also overwinters in the soil, in the spring it lays eggs in earthen chambers, and after a couple of weeks larvae are born, which will develop for several years.

The mole cricket reproduces quickly, laying one and a half to two hundred eggs at a time, and quickly gets used to pest control medications.

Appearance and symptoms of the presence of a mole cricket

An adult mole cricket is a large (up to 5 cm) big-eyed brown-brown insect with large front paws-claws. She runs fast, moves actively underground, and can fly and swim.

Mole cricket larvae are similar to adult individuals, only smaller in size and slower. As they grow, they feed on the same resources, increasing trouble in the garden beds.

The appearance of a mole cricket in an area can be detected by the sudden wilting of seedlings and the surface of the soil, dotted with small holes and loose mounds that appear in places where the insect moves.

Measures to combat the mole cricket

Measures to prevent the appearance of mole crickets include planting plants with a strong smell (marigolds, calendula), sifting purchased soil and manure, and following the rules of agricultural technology.

If insects have already appeared on the site, you will have to fight them - and, unfortunately, this will take quite a long time. Some even believe that it is impossible to completely remove mole crickets from the garden.

You can place a variety of traps on the territory (containers with beer or honey, piles of manure). Boiling water, an infusion of onion peels or soapy water are poured into the discovered holes made by mole crickets in the ground, or calcium carbide is poured (after rain it will enter into a chemical reaction with water, releasing acetylene gas, which is poisonous to the insect).

Of the proven chemical insecticides against mole crickets, we can recommend Terradox, Discharge, Medvegon, Grom, Rubezh, Rofatox, Rembek, etc., which are laid out in holes during planting of seedlings.

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Pest Control Methods

The following methods using various means will help you get rid of the listed pests on potatoes: chemicals, manually and folk remedies.

Mechanical methods of struggle

Mechanical methods of control involve manual collection of pests from the surface of potatoes. For example, gardeners collect the Colorado potato beetle or potato wedges. This is, in some way, an effective technique that requires a lot of effort and time. Collection can be done with large specimens that will not fly away due to human presence. The same cannot be done with earth-moving insects.

The latter can be destroyed with the help of deep digging in autumn and spring. Knowing at what depth insect larvae and eggs are located, people use various types of plowing in their garden. In this case, eggs and pupae turn to the surface, and under the influence of frost they die.

In addition, in the fall, be sure to remove weeds from the area where pest oviposition may persist.

Vegetable storage facilities into which eggs may end up along with the potato harvest are treated for the same purposes. For warm regions where chafers fly en masse, they are caught by turning on the lights and catching them at night using various devices, such as nets made of small fabric. By nature, beetles fly towards the light, which makes them easier to catch.

In the fight against rodent pests, homemade traps and traps are used. Ultrasonic repellers are installed along the perimeter of potato plantings and are effective. They use smoke blowers and sulfur bombs, which are lowered into the burrows. And ultimately, they attract cats and dogs.

Chemicals

The use of chemicals to kill pests is the most effective method of control, especially in cases of massive infestation of potato plantings. The most effective are:

You cannot use the same product against the Colorado potato beetle every year, as this causes the pest to become addicted. To destroy it, use: “Colorado”, “Iskra”, “Marshal”, “Taboo”, “Sumitsidin”, “Prestige”, “Decis”, “Temp”, “Glow”.
To etch cutworm caterpillars, Zolon, Prestige, Inta Vir, Dursban and Danadim are used both on the surface and inside the soil.
To eliminate oviposition, the mole cricket and its planting itself are treated with “Medvetox” and “Medvecid”. Many gardeners resort to the help of “Fenaskin +”, “Regent”.
Such work is not carried out against wireworms due to its low effectiveness.
The following chemicals can defeat the nematode: “Bi 58” and “Dimethoate”.
Rodents can be exterminated using disinfectants sold at any veterinary pharmacy.

Typically, the listed insecticides have a wide spectrum of action, that is, they destroy a group of pests. If in the proposed list the product is presented for the Colorado potato beetle, it can be used to treat other pests on potatoes. All actions must be coordinated with the attached instructions: dose, quantity for different types of crops, type of insects, method of preparation and hazard class.

Traditional methods

It is not always good to use chemicals. Many fighters for a healthy lifestyle will use all available and studied means at hand, which are no less fruitful:

The Colorado potato beetle, like many other pests, does not like the aroma of some herbs: marigolds, calendula, parsley, and other aromatic herbs. It is recommended to place flower beds with these flowers close to the potatoes. Today this is most likely a myth, since over the years the beetle has even become addicted to certain chemicals. An infusion of wormwood is used as a treatment. The herb is crushed, poured with boiling water and infused, and then watered or sprinkled over the potato leaves.
To save potatoes from flea beetles, use ash, tobacco dust as a pollinator, and a solution of food salt under the bush. It is more effective to prepare a mixture including these components with the addition of chamomile infusion.
Some pests do not like onions and garlic, so by sprinkling the potatoes over the leaves with an infusion of the products, you can drive away the pests, bugs and the same flea.
The mole cricket does not tolerate fatty or high soil fertility, so an infusion of chicken manure will drive it out of the garden. Take 2 kg of litter in a bucket of water and let it sit. The working fluid consists of 1 part infusion and 5 parts water. Only spill the infected areas under the potatoes.
It is also recommended to treat potato tubers with potassium permanganate before planting, which will reduce the percentage of damage by nematodes and wireworms.

In the fight against wireworms, it is important to select potato varieties that are resistant to the pest.

Click beetle and its wireworm larva

Strictly speaking, there are many species of click beetles. And not all of them are dangerous for your garden. But we will talk specifically about the latter, which themselves feed on young tubers and leaves of potatoes, and lay eggs, from which real dangerous pests of agricultural crops emerge - larvae, nicknamed wireworms for their appearance.

The beetles lay their eggs in the soil in early to mid-summer, and the hatching larvae overwinter several times before pupating and developing into adult insects, becoming especially harmful to plants when they are older.

Wireworms gnaw long straight passages in tubers. Damaged plants become easy prey for parasites and diseases, are practically impossible to store, and lose their marketable appearance. If wireworms dominate the area, it is impossible to grow healthy root crops even with the use of strong chemicals.

Appearance and symptoms of wireworm presence

The beetles themselves are brown insects with an elongated body, clearly divided into a cephalothorax and abdomen. They received their name for their remarkable ability, being turned on their back, to independently turn over with a jump with a sharp clicking sound.

The beetle larvae are small, dense, yellow-white “worms” that darken with age to an orange-brown color with a dark head and a hard, chitinized cover. During the growth period, wireworms actively move in search of food and feed on underground plant organs.

It is quite simple to determine whether an area is infested with these larvae by the presence of tubers damaged in this way.

Measures to combat wireworms

The fight against wireworms begins with prevention: do not thicken the crops, observe crop rotation, promptly remove weeds (especially wheatgrass) and plant debris, lime the soil, preventing it from acidifying and caking.

Biological methods of getting rid of wireworms mainly include installing traps and baits based on natural products. Every day, the containers need to be cleaned of accumulated larvae and “charged” again, and this will have to be done all summer. You can also use folk remedies to repel pests - onion peels, mustard powder, pine needles, potassium permanganate, etc. A good result is achieved by introducing predatory ground beetles into the area, if possible.

If the number of wireworms is too large, you can treat the soil against pests with chemicals (Zemlin). However, it is not recommended to plant anything in the treated area for some time.

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Prevention of potato pests

Vegetable growers have to constantly fight potato pests. But prevention is the most effective option against potato parasites on the site. You need to start protecting the crop with planting material. There is a large selection of drugs. They differ in their operating principle, price, volume, and degree of danger. Ways to use protective equipment:

Processing potato tubers before planting. You can take “Prestige” or “Taboo”. The drug is applied directly to the tubers or the solution is added to the wells. A solution of potassium permanganate or wood ash is a substitute for chemicals.
Deep plowing of the site in the fall. This technique destroys the larvae of pests that have gone to winter.
Hilling up, high-quality weeding of potatoes. Hilling the tops does not allow many parasites to reach the bush; loosening the soil at this moment destroys young individuals. Weeding gets rid of weeds that serve as habitats or breeding grounds for many pests.
Growing plants with a repellent odor along the edges of potato beds - marigolds, dill, basil.
Add 0.5 cups of wood ash to the holes to repel insect pests.

It should be noted that you should not limit yourself to one method; you need to fight comprehensively.

Some visual information:

Potato moth (fluorimea)

The potato moth is a historical neighbor of the Colorado potato beetle. In its homeland in America, it (or rather its caterpillars) has long been, since the times of ancient Indian civilizations, damaging potato tubers stored for storage. And only in the twentieth century did it “enter the world stage.”

This quarantine pest is nocturnal as an adult. The moth lays eggs on the underside of plant leaves (mainly from the Solanaceae family); the eggs hatch into larvae that begin to actively gnaw on the leaf blades. When the potato tops dry out, the caterpillars descend into the tubers and literally tear them up from the inside.

The pest overwinters in the open air in the form of an imago or pupa under plant debris in the upper layers of the soil, as well as in tuber storage facilities - at all stages of development.

The main reservoir of potato moths is precisely potato storage facilities, where insects actively continue their development, damaging tubers and thereby contributing to their rotting.

Appearance and symptoms of potato moth

An adult moth insect is a small butterfly of an inconspicuous brownish-gray color with long antennae and a wingspan of up to 15 mm. The active period is from April to October.

One female during her short life (just a few days) can lay up to 200 eggs, from which yellowish caterpillars emerge, reaching 13 mm in length in the last stages. The pupae are brown, enclosed in silver-gray cocoons.

In case of massive infestation, it is not difficult to notice traces of the presence of potato moth - the leaves of the plants in the beds are nibbled, the tops are drooping, the stems and leaves are shrouded in a white “web” (mainly in the upper part), the tubers are deeply penetrated by winding passages.

Measures to combat potato moth

Prevention and biological control measures against potato moth include the use of only healthy planting material, destruction of weeds, timely high hilling of bushes, harvesting before the tops dry out, storing only healthy undamaged tubers, as well as spraying vegetative plants with Entobacterin (50- 100 g per 10 liters of water) with an interval of 6-8 days.

Chemical measures - after detection of butterflies, immediate treatment of potato bushes with preparations: Inta-Vir, Inta-Ts-M, Molniya Extra, Shar Pei, etc. The interval between treatments is 10-15 days.

The most dangerous potato pests

The spread of pests in the garden most often has the nature of an epidemic, that is, one type of insect is active one year, and another the next year. If appropriate pest control and prevention measures are not taken, you can lose up to 40% of the harvest.

Most potato pests are highly resistant to climate change, so it is difficult to destroy them using natural methods. When the same product is used against insects for a long time, it also becomes addictive, and in the future such a drug becomes completely useless.

Protecting a potato field from insects and other pests should include a set of certain measures. But in order to carry out the most effective fight against parasites, it is necessary to first study their biological abilities, characteristics and nature of life.

Colorado beetle

The most famous and very dangerous pest of potatoes is the Colorado potato beetle. When spread en masse, the insect can destroy the entire crop of root crops.

The homeland of the Colorado potato beetle is Colorado. For the first time, residents of the state discovered the beetle in 1859. After 100 years, the insect safely “moved” to Russia. Until 1975, agronomists managed to successfully combat the spread of the pest, but after a few years the Colorado potato beetle spread throughout many countries of the world.

Description

The striped body of the Colorado potato beetle is visible even to the naked eye. The insect is small in size - up to 1 cm in length and up to 0.7 cm in width. The surface of the body is dense, orange in color. The body has hard elytra decorated with black longitudinal stripes. Soft wings are located under the hard elytra.

The greatest damage to root crops is caused by the bright orange larvae of the Colorado potato beetle. The larvae emerge from eggs that the adult insect lays on the underside of potato leaves. The larvae are very voracious, they feed on the juicy pulp of leaf blades and cause significant damage to plants.

Biological features

The Colorado potato beetle overwinters underground. It burrows into relatively shallow holes (up to 10 cm), and in the spring, after persistent warm weather appears, it emerges to the soil surface.

The female beetle is fertile. During the summer season, it is capable of laying 3 generations of larvae. The total number of eggs laid per season often exceeds 1000 (provided that the weather is warm but not hot).

The larvae feed on tops. If you do not fight pests, they are able to gnaw off the green pulp of plants completely. Having eaten, the larva burrows into the soil, where it pupates, and after 2-3 weeks an adult beetle crawls to the surface. If the summer season is over, then the adult goes to winter. If summer is in full swing, then the pest again begins to destroy potato tops.

The insect prefers to feed on young agricultural tops. If young potato leaves are destroyed, the pest moves to eggplants, tomatoes and other plants.

Control measures

The most ancient way to combat the Colorado potato beetle is to collect adults and larvae. Potato tops are regularly inspected, pests are collected and destroyed. The method is effective if the insect’s spread has just begun and its numbers are small.

If the Colorado potato beetle has “captured” most of the potato field, then it is necessary to use other methods. Insecticides are used to treat tops. The drugs can be purchased at a specialty store. It is recommended to carry out 2 treatments per season, this will guarantee the destruction of the Colorado potato beetle. It is important to remember that insecticidal preparations can accumulate in plants, so when using them you must adhere to the basic instructions for use and not exceed the dosage specified in the recommendations.

Insecticide preparations for the Colorado potato beetle:

Fitoverm;
Karate;
Zolon;
Colorado;
Sonnet.