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The homeland of the potato is South America, this vegetable came to Our Country through the efforts of Peter I, and now it’s hard to believe that at first the potato did not cause much enthusiasm among the population. Currently, potatoes are one of the main food products, used in boiled, fried, baked form. You can make mashed potatoes and stews from potatoes, fry them with mushrooms and sour cream. Potatoes are used in many salads, are the main ingredient in soups, and rare picnics do without charcoal-baked potatoes.
Potatoes are sold in any supermarket, but no one will argue that potatoes grown on their own plot are much tastier than those imported from Egypt, Israel or Pakistan.
Growing potatoes in the backyard
Have you set out to grow potatoes yourself? There is nothing easier: we buy, or take tubers for planting from a neighbor, plant, fertilize, spud, collect the Colorado potato beetle, looking forward to the harvest. In the fall, we dig up lovingly grown potatoes, but what is it? Instead of even and beautiful tubers, we see potatoes, over which it is as if someone has worked with a hole punch.
On the cut, the vegetable is riddled with thin and frequent passages, it is easier to throw it away than trying to remove the affected areas and find edible ones. Such damage to the potato crop was caused by wireworms, the larvae of the click beetle. The infection penetrates into the potato affected by the pest, and at least 70% of the crop becomes unfit for food. Potatoes affected by wireworm do not store well, they rot in damaged areas. The complexity of the fight against the wireworm is due to its underground habitation. It is difficult to predict in advance how much the soil is infected with a pest.
Potato pest – wireworm
The insect itself owes its name to the characteristic sound that the beetle makes when it tries to roll over from its back to its paws. And the larva is called a wireworm because of its thin body and strong cover. The larva is like a piece of wire, so it is almost impossible to crush the wireworm, but it can be torn apart, but it is useless to fight the wireworm in the garden. How to deal with it, some information about the pest itself will prompt. The wireworm is well mobile vertically, depending on soil moisture, it can move up and down in the soil to a depth of two meters. The horizontal mobility of the wireworm is much less, only a couple of tens of centimeters. These features should be taken into account when dealing with pests.
Insect development cycle
Is five years. In spring, each female beetle lays more than a hundred eggs, placing them under plant debris and earthen clods. In the first year of development, the larva does not harm cultivated plants. From the second year until the transformation into an adult insect, the larva, which looks like a 2-3 cm yellow-brown worm, is a dangerous pest, causing great damage to agriculture. The wireworm eats the seeds, roots of the plant and its stems. How to deal with wireworm effectively, this article will tell.
Chemical pest control methods
The wireworm, like any garden pest, is afraid of modern chemicals. “Bazudin”, “Prestige” and similar substances destroy the pest and prevent its reappearance. Such drugs are poured into the hole before planting the tubers, and completely decompose no earlier than two months later, and only after this period they become harmless to humans. This method is not suitable for those who like to eat young potatoes of early varieties.
The advantages of folk methods of struggle
An increasing number of gardeners are trying to do without potent chemicals on their site, turning to ecological farming. The fight against wireworm with folk remedies involves the use of means that are safe for human health. Proper agricultural technology, the use of baits, plant infusions, will allow you to safely deal with the wireworm in the garden. Do not be afraid to spend your time and energy on the destruction of the wireworm, the reward will be a good harvest of potatoes.
Agrotechnical methods
First and foremost, keep your area clean. Regularly weed the beds, especially carefully remove the wheatgrass. Destroy not only the aerial part of the weed, but also the roots of wheatgrass, because this is the main delicacy of the wireworm. Do not leave weeds removed on the beds, insects find shelter under them. Take plant debris outside of your garden or dispose of it in a compost pit. How to get rid of the wireworm in agrotechnical ways:
- Observe crop rotation: cabbage, legumes, cucumbers, cucurbits are good predecessors for potatoes. Potatoes should not be planted in a place where tomatoes and other plants of the nightshade family were previously grown. With the right crop rotation, we fight the wireworm at all stages of its development. Use green manure legumes such as alfalfa, vetch mixed with oats, sweet clover, annual lupine. These plants not only contribute to the expulsion of the wireworm, but also enrich the soil with microelements and contribute to its aeration.
- Make a deep autumn digging of the soil, the nutcracker larvae will become available to birds, and when frost sets in, they will die from low temperatures. During the summer, regularly loosen the potato beds, the eggs of the click beetle will be in the sun, their development will stop, and the larvae will no longer hatch from them.
- After harvesting potatoes and storing the crop, select small tubers from the soil, thereby reducing the supply of nutrients for the wireworm.
- In the spring, dig the soil shallow. If you notice a wireworm, select it manually from the ground.
- The wireworm prefers damp, acidic soils, so liming the area intended for growing potatoes. Dolomite flour is applied during digging every 3-4 years. Ash can be sprinkled in the aisles of potato ridges; crushed eggshells are a good tool.
- For neutral or slightly alkaline soil, half a liter of a weak solution of potassium permanganate (5 grams of potassium permanganate per 10 liters of water) can be poured into the planting hole when planting potatoes. In acidic soil, this solution can burn the roots, so instead of using potassium permanganate, put pine needles or onion skins in the hole.
- In a decoction of onion peel, tubers can be soaked before planting. This method not only repels the wireworm, but also serves as a prevention of potato diseases.
- A handful of mustard powder poured into the planting hole will also scare away the wireworm. You can add a pinch of hot pepper to the mustard powder.
- Double action have drugs containing ammonia: ammonia water and ammonium sulfate. Regular use of these products is a good fertilizer for potatoes, and serves as an effective tool for the destruction of wireworm.
- Adding beans or peas to the planting hole is a good protection against wireworm. A mixture of vegetable oil and eggshells in the planting hole will kill the larvae of the click beetle.
- Planting marigolds, beans, peas, soybeans or black beans between the rows of potatoes will also scare away the wireworm.
- If you plan to grow potatoes on a previously unused piece of land, after plowing it, do not plant potatoes, but grow legumes and green manure there for the first couple of years.
- A good helper in the fight against wireworm is the predatory nematode nemabact, which is contained in the Zashchita soil. A handful of soil added to the hole when planting potatoes contains enough microscopic worms that will destroy the wireworm without harming either plants or people.
Bait to fight wireworm
Folk remedies for wireworms include mechanical methods, namely laying out the bait. The method requires some time and labor, but is very effective.
- Wireworms love to eat lettuce roots, plant this crop between rows of potatoes, thereby sacrificing lettuce, but saving potato plantings.
- The bait can be seeds of wheat, corn, oats or barley. Sow them in small areas. After a few weeks, dig up the seedlings, the wireworms will be inside them. Thus, you can get rid of a large number of larvae, after which you can already plant potatoes.
- In addition to cereals, you can use root crops as bait: bury pieces of carrots, beets or potatoes in the soil, and dig them out after a few days. Pests will gather near the bait, collect and destroy it.
- Dig empty cans into the ground, previously punched in several places with a nail. Place mashed potato leaves in the bottom of the jar. Periodically check the traps, they collect both wireworms and adults. To make it easier to remove the bait from the ground, it can be strung on a wire or a strong fishing line. By pulling on the line, you can take out the bait with the caught wireworm.
- To destroy adult click beetles, make them a “nest” of wet straw or grass. Females will gather there to lay their eggs, after which collect these “nests” and burn them, the number of wireworms will decrease.
- You can lure adult beetles to sweet bait. Spread a film between the rows of potatoes, apply some sweet syrup on it. This trap will gather many insects, including adult click beetles. Destroy them as they appear on the film. The more adults you can catch, the less wireworm will be in the soil in subsequent years.
The use of herbal tinctures
A good means of destroying the wireworm in the garden with folk remedies are infusions of some herbs. It is possible to treat with such a tool both a planting hole before planting potatoes, and watering potato bushes during the growing season. Wireworms cannot stand infusions of certain herbs. You can use nettle at the rate of 500 grams per 10 liters of water, dandelion at the rate of 200 grams of raw materials per 10 liters, coltsfoot (200 g per 10 liters), or celandine at the rate of 100 grams per 10 liters of water. Celandine should be infused for three days, and all other herbs for 12 hours.
Ten liters of herbal infusion is enough for about two dozen potato planting holes. Repeat the treatment with herbal infusions after about 7-10 days two to three times.
To summarize
As you can see, there are a lot of methods for dealing with wireworms. Yes, perhaps it is easier to flood the entire area with harsh chemistry, and destroy not only the wireworm on it, but, in general, everything living and useful. Folk ways to get rid of wireworms require time and effort, they are more troublesome than chemical methods of dealing with wireworms, but folk methods are safe, they do not harm the environment, do not disturb the ecological balance, and are not dangerous for pets and humans. Combine several methods of harmless destruction of the wireworm, an integrated approach is always more effective. Using non-chemical ways to get rid of wireworm, you will get a tasty and healthy potato crop.