How to treat gooseberries from pests
Various insects love to eat gooseberries. No matter how hard you try to grow a good crop, pests can nullify all your efforts. Let’s figure out how to treat gooseberries from pests, how to recognize them and how they are dangerous.
There are many insects that attack gooseberries.
Gooseberry pests can destroy an entire crop
The most common ones are:
- Gooseberry moth. This is a nondescript gray moth. It is given by the characteristic brown stripes on the wings. The caterpillars of this moth are 2 cm long, they are green with a dark head. Moths lay their larvae in flowers, so the pests end up right in the berries. They eat seeds and juicy pulp. Affected berries turn red ahead of time, begin to rot and dry out soon.
- Gooseberry sawfly. It is a red or yellow bug with black splashes, vaguely similar to a fly. Its caterpillars are green with a bluish tinge, they are covered with black dots. Beetles lay chains of eggs on leaves. The larvae are able to eat the entire leaf without a trace in just 2 days.
- Shoot aphid. Small green bug. He is born in the spring and drinks juice from young leaves and shoots. The affected parts of the plant do not develop.
- Moth. White butterfly with black design on the wings. Its caterpillar is light yellow with black spots. In the spring, the caterpillars completely devour the foliage.
Each pest requires a different approach to control.
How to deal with gooseberry pests?
You can destroy pests with and without chemistry:
- Firefighter. Remove damaged berries and spray the bush with water infused with tomato tops. If the damage is too strong, treat the bush twice with chemicals from leaf-eating insects, for example, Iskra.
- Sawfly. As a preventive measure, remove old branches on time, water the bush with boiling water in early spring. Treat the affected bush before flowering with “Gardon” or “Ambush”.
- Shoot aphid. Lure ladybirds to gooseberry bushes, treat bushes with tobacco or ash infusion. From chemicals the preparations “Decis” and “Iskra” are suitable.
- Moth. Folk remedies are the same as against the sawfly. All means against leaf-gnawing insects are suitable from chemicals.
Whenever possible, try to avoid chemicals in order to get an environmentally friendly harvest.
Try to identify pests early. So the chances of saving the bush and the harvest are much higher. If you use chemicals to combat, be careful, follow safety precautions.