Eaten gooseberry leaves: who eats, photo, fight against green caterpillars with folk remedies and chemicals

Spring is the time when nature blooms and all living things wake up. Together with plants and shrubs in the summer cottage, pests wake up from hibernation, who can cause them irreparable harm. Gooseberry leaves are eaten by more numerous insects and larvae, the fight against which and the prevention of their appearance occupy an important place in the management of each summer cottage.

Who eats gooseberry leaves

Among the pests that can harm gooseberries, caterpillars that eat gooseberry leaves predominate. There are several varieties of these larvae at once. All of them differ from each other not only in their appearance, but also in what ways it is necessary to deal with them.

The most common caterpillars that eat gooseberry leaves are:

How to determine whose caterpillars appeared on the gooseberry

In order to determine which methods of dealing with pests that have appeared, it is necessary to clearly understand who exactly will have to fight and who exactly ate the gooseberry leaves. To determine which caterpillars appeared on the gooseberry and ate its leaves, you need to be able to distinguish them from each other by the main external signs, and every gardener on whose site this plant is located should know this.

Sawfly caterpillars on gooseberry leaves

By right, sawfly caterpillars have earned the reputation of the most dangerous pests for gooseberries. They eat gooseberry leaves almost without a trace. They also do not disdain to feast on plantings such as black and red currants.

There are two main varieties of sawfly caterpillars that eat all the leaves of the gooseberry: yellow and pale-footed.

Both of them can cause irreparable harm to the gooseberry, eating every leaf of the plant, down to the veins.

Caterpillar Description:

• external similarity with an ordinary caterpillar;
• green or greenish-blue coloring;
• 10 pairs of legs;
• have a black dot around the perimeter.

The wintering of these larvae occurs in the ground, directly at the base of the shrub itself. In winter, they are located in thick cocoons at a depth of approximately 12 – 15 cm. When early spring comes, the larvae pass into the cocoon stage and at the moment when the plants they have chosen begin to bloom, they turn into adults.

Female insects lay their eggs during the formation of young leaves on their lower side, along the main leaf veins. From these eggs, caterpillars quickly appear and begin to actively develop the process of their life. Initially, they gnaw out small holes in the leaf, and then completely eat the entire leaf plate without a trace.

The life stage of the caterpillar directly on the foliage of the plant lasts approximately 28 days. After gaining the required mass, they go to the soil and move on to the next stage – the stage of the cocoon, and subsequently – the pupae.

The eggs left by the female on the gooseberry foliage are quite difficult to notice with the naked eye, and not all gardeners pay attention to small holes in the leaves. Due to this, the caterpillars can actively develop.

The vital activity of these caterpillars threatens gooseberry bushes with the following consequences:

• the berries of such a bush will be much smaller than from a healthy plant;
• some of the berries fall to the ground in a shorter time;
• the plant has a significant weakening of the growth of the shoot part;
• the winter hardiness of gooseberry bushes drops sharply.

Green moth caterpillars on a gooseberry

If the green caterpillars ate the leaves on the gooseberry, then, most likely, we are talking about moth caterpillars. They cause great harm to the crop of the gooseberry bush.

Pest Description:

• the length of the caterpillar larva is a little less than 1,5 cm;
• the body of its bright green hue, with clearly distinguishable dark stripes;
• the head is painted black.

Butterfly pupae hibernate in the ground, in its upper layer. During the period when the first buds appear on the gooseberries, butterflies fly out of the pupae. The females of these butterflies during the end of flowering plants lay eggs in the flowers. One adult female can lay about 200 eggs on the foliage of the plantation. After 10 days, caterpillars appear from these eggs. They are quite voracious and eat both flower buds and berry ovaries. The period of their life cycle on the foliage can last about 30 days, and during this time they manage to pretty much spoil the possible harvest of berries from the gooseberry bush. Basically, they feed on berry pulp and its seeds. For a relatively short period of time, one such caterpillar is capable of destroying about 7 gooseberries. Having dealt with the next fruit, the pests wrap it in cobwebs.

After 30 days, the caterpillars are ready to move on to the next stage of their life cycle – pupation. As a rule, this period comes just when it is necessary to harvest.

It is not difficult to detect that a bush has been attacked by moth caterpillars. This can be understood by the following signs:

• Upon close examination of the gooseberry berry, you can see small holes in the berries, while a small thin cobweb stretches from berry to berry;
• If you examine a lump of cobwebs, then you can see up to 6 berries in it. Some of them are still quite fresh and untouched by pests, others, on the contrary, are already rotting or completely dried up;
• If you stir up such a lump, then in one of the fresh berries, most likely, you can find a moth caterpillar.

Currant glass caterpillars

This pest is considered one of the most dangerous. Despite its name, such a caterpillar is not averse to feasting on gooseberry foliage.

The danger lies in the fact that for a sufficiently long period of time the presence of this pest in the bush does not mean itself in any way, and summer residents sometimes begin to fight it when it is almost impossible to do anything, and the bush has been seriously damaged. This type of caterpillars is able to completely destroy the entire volume of the crop.

Adult females of the currant vitreous lay about 60 oblong eggs directly on the branches of shrubs.

Description of the pest:

• white color of the larva;
• dark head;
• is particularly greedy.

Approximately 10 days after the eggs have been laid, harmful larvae emerge from them. During this period they are very vulnerable. This continues until the caterpillars have penetrated from the foliage into the branches. There they begin to actively feed and can make their way up to 30 cm long, thereby destroying the bush from the inside. For wintering, they remain inside the plant and only in May get out in order to give birth to their descendants.

You can recognize that the gooseberry bush is affected by these caterpillars by the following signs:

• the leaves on the branch inhabited by them are smaller than their neighbors;
• in hot climates, the leaves on the branch wither and fall off very quickly;
• the death of the affected part of the plant occurs in the second year after the currant glass has got inside it;
• when cutting off such a shoot in its core, one can observe a cavity filled with the waste products of this caterpillar.

Causes of the appearance of green caterpillars on gooseberry leaves

The main reason for the appearance of harmful and voracious caterpillars on the leaves, fruits and branches of the gooseberry is that the owner of the site on which the shrub is located:

• does not pay enough attention to methods of preventing their occurrence;
• not in time begins to fight with harmful insects;
  Important! It must be remembered that the sooner the gardener starts pest control, the more likely it is that they can be completely exterminated from the leaves of the plant, and the gooseberry bush will not be completely damaged. In addition, this will stop the spread of larvae to other plants in the garden that have not yet been infected.
• simply does not know about the presence of such caterpillars and the need to actively fight them in order to maintain the “health” of their plantings in their summer cottage.

 How to deal with those who eat gooseberry leaves

There are several basic ways to deal with gooseberry caterpillars that have eaten its leaves, branches and berries. They can be used individually or in combination with each other. The main thing is to start the process of pest extermination in a timely manner and monitor the result of the measures taken.

How to deal with caterpillars on gooseberries with folk remedies

Folk remedies for combating caterpillars on gooseberries have been known for a long time and have proven themselves very positively. They are very effective and safe.

Among them should be highlighted:

• Planting in the immediate vicinity of the gooseberry red elderberry. Its smell will surely scare away many pests from gooseberry leaves;
• Spraying gooseberry leaves with an infusion of elderberry in the period before flowering and immediately after it will contribute to the destruction of caterpillars. This infusion can be prepared as follows: take 200 g of crushed flowers and shoots of red elderberry; pour 10 liters of hot water; insist the solution for about 2 hours and proceed to the processing of gooseberries;
• Processing gooseberry leaves with a decoction of wormwood. This will help to cope with fire and glass. In this case, you need to act as follows: take half a bucket of fresh bitter wormwood; pour 10 liters of water and leave everything in this form for 24 hours; after the required amount of time, boil the solution for half an hour. It should be used diluted in proportion – 1 part of the solution: 5 parts of water. Processing must be done 3 times with a break of 7 days;
• Fumigation of gooseberry bushes with tobacco dust. To do this, you should: create a pile of dry debris on the leeward side; pour 2 kg of tobacco (dust) on top of it; fumigate gooseberries for about 30 minutes;
• Sprinkling the earth under a bush with the following composition: 300 g of wood ash + 1 tbsp. l. dry mustard + 200 g of tobacco dust;
• spraying with a special coniferous solution of gooseberry leaves during the entire flowering every 7 days. To prepare it, you should: pour green cones of pine or spruce (100g) with hot water; after 5 hours, you can start processing.

All of the above tools will be highly effective in combination with the following procedures:

• loosening the soil around and under the gooseberry;
• cutting off damaged branches and leaves;
• picking rotten berries.

How to deal with caterpillars on gooseberries with chemicals

In addition to folk ways to deal with caterpillars on gooseberries, there is a whole arsenal of chemicals that will also help to cope with the trouble that has arisen on the leaves. The following preparations are highly effective in the fight against voracious caterpillars:

• “Chlorophos”. This tool is available in several forms at once: in the form of a paste or powder. In addition, the drug has a different concentration. He proved his effectiveness in relation to the fight against the sawfly and moth on the leaves of the bush;
• “Entobacterin-3”. It is actively used in the fight against sawfly. It can be used at an ambient temperature of at least 20 degrees Celsius. A big plus of this tool is that it does not have a detrimental effect on other plants, animals and beneficial insects. It can be combined with Chlorophos – and thereby further increase the efficiency;
• “Sevin” – a potent drug that fights glass, fire, their larvae and eggs on the leaves of a green space. It can be used only in the period before flowering, directly spraying the drug on the foliage;
• “pyrethrum” – a very toxic powder that is used to pollinate gooseberry leaves or make a solution based on it. This tool very successfully copes with caterpillars that damage vegetation.

How to get rid of caterpillars on gooseberries by mechanical methods

Mechanical methods of dealing with caterpillars inhabiting gooseberry leaves are considered the simplest, budgetary and very affordable for all amateur gardeners. However, in order for them to have a positive effect, such activities should be carried out with periodic regularity, carefully monitoring the timing when pest control should be especially active. Procedures include:

• Dropping caterpillars from branches and leaves of shrubs;
• Collection of larvae from foliage by hand and their destruction;
• The imposition of glue belts on the branches of a shrub. The surface of such a belt is lubricated with an adhesive substance. The easiest way to prepare this substance is by mixing burdock oil and boiling tar in a ratio of 1: 2.

 Preventive measures

In order to avoid the rather laborious process of dealing with caterpillars on gooseberry foliage, a number of simple recommendations should be followed on methods for preventing the appearance of these harmful larvae in your summer cottage. It is worth conducting them at least 4 times, namely:

• spring;
• autumn;
• before the flowering period;
• after the flowering period.

The main preventive measures include the following:

• during the onset of heat, gooseberry leaves and the ground around it must be treated with the following solution: ash + chalk + copper sulfate;
• in order to kill all the caterpillar larvae, it is necessary to water the soil under the bush with hot boiled water (the temperature should be about 90 degrees Celsius);
• fallen leaves under a bush should definitely be collected and burned;
• as a preventive measure, gooseberry foliage should be sprayed with special chemicals during early spring.

Conclusion

Gooseberry leaves are eaten by numerous harmful caterpillars. Fighting them is a rather complicated and time-consuming process, during which you need to stock up on strength and patience. Knowing certain pest control methods on gooseberry leaves, you can defeat them and save the plant from imminent death, but you should always remember that it is easier to perform certain actions to prevent the appearance of larvae than to subsequently fight them.