Strawberry weevil

Strawberry weevil

Strawberry Weevil Larvae

Plants from strawberry weevil

Preparations for strawberry weevil

Strawberry weevil or flower beetle causes great harm to berry crops. In addition to raspberries and strawberries, it feels great on blackberries, strawberries and other wild herbaceous plants from the Rosaceae family. About 90% of the harvest of tender berries is lost due to the fact that the pest destroys the buds of flowering plants.

Meet the Garden Pest

Raspberry-strawberry weevil lives everywhere, where strawberries and raspberries grow. Agricultural pest is black. Its small oval body, reaching a length of 2-3 mm, is covered with small gray bristles. A small head is elongated into a long proboscis and is equipped with a club-shaped antennae, consisting of seven segments. On hard elytra there are weakly distinguishable grooves.

Experienced gardeners and novice amateurs are interested in the question to which order the strawberry weevil belongs. The pest belongs to the order of beetles from the family weevils. Immature insects winter in last year's plant debris, under fallen leaves and in other secluded places. With the onset of spring, when the soil warms up to approximately 13 ° C, they begin to leave their winters. To determine what the raspberry pest eats is not difficult. At this time, strawberries begin to grow, which is a favorite food for beetles. They gnaw through young shoots of culture through, and with the appearance of the first buds they damage them and feed on unripe anthers.

Breeding

About a month after active saturation, strawberry weevils, having reached puberty, proceed to the mating process. The female begins to lay eggs from mid-May, and this period lasts for a month.

Initially, beetles place masonry on flowering strawberries. The weevil pierces the side of the bud and lays one egg in it. Then he closes the hole with excrement and prudently gnaws the pedicel. After a few days, the buds turn brown and fall off. The inside embryo develops within seven days. Due to the short period of budding of strawberries, the weevil-flowering weed moves to its later varieties, and then to raspberries, blackberries and strawberries.

Interesting!

The harm done by only one female is estimated at fifty damaged buds of tender berries.

Seven days later, legless dirty gray curved larvae with a yellow-brown head appear from the eggs, which can bring enormous harm to berry crops. They feed on the contents of the buds. Here they pupate. If this part of the plant does not appear on the ground, then the larvae die. Pupa development takes from seven to nine days. A young strawberry-raspberry weevil appears in mid-July and begins to be actively saturated with young leaves of strawberries, raspberries, as well as their late ovary and unripe green berries.When the air temperature drops to 10-12 ° C, they go for wintering, hiding in the upper layers of the soil or under fallen leaves.

Depending on weather conditions, the duration of the entire period of formation of young individuals can last from 25 to 45 days. Strawberry weevil in the photo posted on the site will allow you to get acquainted in detail with the pest and the main phases of its development.

Signs of a malicious bug in the garden

The main symptoms indicating the presence of weevils on berry crops include the following characteristic phenomena:

• holes of small diameter or punctures on the early leaves of strawberries;
• browned buds of berry culture;
• a large number of fallen, as if cut off inflorescences;
• on the bushes you can see overflowed and hanging on a dried leg buds.

The presence of at least one of these phenomena indicates that the strawberry weevil settled in the garden

Protective and preventive measures from bugs

In order to save the planting of strawberries, raspberries and other berry crops from a gluttonous beetle, care should be taken to create conditions unfavorable for its existence on the site. Experienced gardeners recommend such protective measures:

• regularly dig up aisles to destroy beetles hidden for wintering;
• to prevent dense groomed areas;
• to renew plantings of raspberries and wild strawberries, removing old plantings;
• periodically inspect the planting and shake off the crawling raspberry weevils, until the end of the harvest;
• if possible, plant early varieties of strawberries and strawberries;
• raspberry weevil does not tolerate pungent odors of black boreals, lilies of the valley, nasturtiums and garlic, so they can be planted next to the berry;

  

• clean and burn all garden rubbish in spring and autumn;
• destroy damaged shoots and leaves;
• try to attract ground beetles weevil to the garden of natural enemies, which can destroy up to twenty-five beetles each day.

These and other preventive control measures will reduce the risk of contamination of the garden plot with dangerous agricultural raspberry pests.

Radical Weed Control

If all the preventive measures did not bring the expected result and the bug continues to host in the garden, then we should move on to more effective means of killing the pest. The fight against strawberry weevil involves the use of chemicals or alternative folk remedies. To get the maximum effect, you need to know what time to process the plants. It is necessary to start fighting the beetle when the pedicels have already formed and risen, but the buds have not yet been isolated. At this time, the highest concentration of insects on berry crops is observed, and they are available for a wide variety of preparations.

People's recommendations

Raspberry weevil can be destroyed using solutions prepared on the basis of the means available to everyone. The following recipes have proven themselves well:

• infusions of tobacco, garlic, mustard or laundry soap are used during the formation of buds;
• a decoction of walnut leaves is used to spray plants before flowering;
• wormwood solution is recommended to cultivate bushes and land under plantings;
• Capsicum infusion gives a good result, but requires strict adherence to proportions;
• decoction of tansy with the addition of laundry soap.

The above recipes make up a small part of those tools that gardeners use to destroy beetles.

Chemicals

How to deal with weevils using insecticides is described in detail in the instructions for each drug.Manufacturers recommend using a large number of different preparations for processing berry crops. To protect raspberry bushes from weevil and preserve the crop will help:

• Kemifos;
• Fufanon Nova;
• Spark M;
• Novaction;
• Fitoverm;
• Agravertine.

For spraying strawberries most often used:

• Fufanon;
• Kemifos;
• Alatar;
• Inta-vir.

Knowing where the strawberry weevil lives, it is necessary to carefully process all plantations of berry crops in accordance with the recommendations set out in the instructions.