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You can fight the scoop on tomatoes with chemicals and folk remedies. But first of all, it is required to study the varieties of the pest and its features.
Types and description of scoops
Scoop is a small gray butterfly with a wingspan of up to 4,5 cm. It is a pest for tomatoes, because it lays eggs on their leaves, from which caterpillars up to 3 cm in length hatch. The color of the larvae are green, brown and pink. During their development to a full-fledged butterfly, caterpillars actively eat tomato plates, stems and ripening fruits.
The scoop is also dangerous for the reason that it breeds in waves. The invasion of caterpillars occurs several times during the summer, if you do not fight them, then you will not be able to harvest a good harvest.
The scoop is represented by several common species. Some of them harm tomatoes mainly in open ground, others appear more often in greenhouses.
Cotton scoop on tomatoes
Cotton owl (Helicoverpa armigera) – a butterfly with grayish-yellow wings, which have a brown edging. In the center is a mark resembling a sickle.
Caterpillars reach 4 cm in length, their color is changeable – black, white, brown or yellow-green. Scoop actively develops on tomatoes at a temperature of 18-28 ° C, eats leaves and fruits.
The development cycle from egg to butterfly takes about a month.
Scoop-gamma
Scoop-gamma (Phytometra gumma) is a pest common throughout Our Country. It damages not only tomatoes, but also other cultivated plants. It has a gray or brown color with a purple tint, a characteristic silver mark is located on the front pair of wings. The caterpillars are green, with white stripes on the back.
The gamma cutworm gives up to four generations during the season in the southern regions
Exclamation
The exclamation owl (Agrotis exclamationis) is a butterfly that lives in the Central part of Our Country, the Far East and Siberia. It has a gray color with a yellow or brown tint. Caterpillars of this species are pale yellow or brownish-gray, up to 3,5 cm, with pimples on the body and a red head.
Tomato scoop gnaws mainly stems near the surface of the soil. If you do not fight the insect, you can lose some of the bushes, which will simply lie down on the ground.
You can meet the exclamation owl even in the polar regions
Ozimaya
Winter scoop (Agrotis segetum) is an insect that damages tomatoes throughout Our Country, including in the north and the Far East. It has a wingspan of up to 4,6 cm, the front ones have a gray-brown color.
Caterpillars of the winter cutworm are brownish, glossy, up to 5 cm in length. The pest gnaws leaves from spring to October, and in autumn it burrows into the ground to a depth of 25 cm.
The winter scoop does not touch the fruits of tomatoes, but it is still necessary to fight it
greenhouse
Under this name, they unite the scoop of various species that settle in the greenhouse. Most often, butterflies have a light color and dark spots on the wings. Their larvae are gray in color, with black stripes on their backs. The greenhouse scoop, in the absence of control measures, feeds on the leaves and fruits of tomatoes.
The greenhouse scoop can easily spread from tomatoes in a greenhouse to neighboring crops
Scoop Karadrin
Scoop Karadrin (Spodoptera exigua) is a polyphagous brown-gray pest with a small wingspan of up to 2,4 cm. The round spot of the butterfly is distinctly reddish.
The Karadrin cutworm breeds from May to October and produces up to three generations per season.
Caterpillars of Karadrin scoops are green or brown, up to 3 cm in length. The parasite feeds mainly on leaves, but in later stages it can also damage fruits. Larvae of the Karadrin scoop pupate after 2-3 weeks of development.
Causes of appearance
Scoop can appear on tomatoes in any area. But compliance with agricultural technology and careful care of the bushes reduce the likelihood that the pest will breed and cause significant harm to plantings.
Neglecting the rules for growing tomatoes leads to the fact that the scoop attacks the vegetable crop in large colonies. Most often, the pest appears:
- in the absence of autumn digging of the soil, a large number of pupae survive in the soil;
- with an abundance of weeds in the garden – at first the larvae feed on grass, and only then move on to tomato leaves;
- with a large amount of plant debris – the remains of old stems and leaves serve as a good winter shelter for pupae.
The emergence of scoops also contributes to the neglect of disinfection. Normally, the area before planting tomatoes needs to be disinfected in order to reduce the likelihood of fungi and pests appearing on the bushes.
Signs of defeat
Photos of scoops on tomatoes confirm that it can be quite difficult to deal with a pest. Many caterpillars merge in color with green leaves, and during the day they often hide in the ground and come to the surface only at night.
Despite this, indirect signs help to recognize the presence of a pest on the site:
- small holes on the leaves, which become larger over time;
- damage to buds and ovaries;
- small holes with eaten away pulp in ripening fruits;
- accumulations of round white eggs on the surface of the leaves.
An adult butterfly and caterpillars on tomatoes must be looked for in the evening or early in the morning.
Harm done
Already from the description of the scoop, it can be understood that it is necessary to fight it – it causes serious harm to tomatoes. In particular:
- severely damages green leaves and causes drying and death of bushes;
- provokes rotting of affected tomatoes;
- attacks neighboring crops – corn, eggplant, beans.
The scoop is dangerous because it lays eggs in large numbers and at the same time breeds in waves. Pest control is difficult to detect.
How to get rid of scoops on tomatoes
There are several ways to fight the scoop on tomatoes. It is necessary to follow the rules of agricultural technology, regularly inspect the bushes, and if insects are found, immediately carry out treatments.
Agrotechnical methods
In a small greenhouse or in a small garden, agrotechnical methods are used, first of all, to combat the parasite. Most often, traps are prepared for scoops – adult butterflies fall into them and cannot lay eggs. Thus, it is possible to interrupt the reproduction cycle of the parasite.
Traps are usually of two types:
- Liquid. Next to the tomatoes, large containers are installed and beer and fermented jam are poured into them in a ratio of 1: 3. Scoops flock to the “treat”, get stuck in it and cannot get out.
The liquid scoop trap should not be too high, otherwise the butterfly will not fall into it
- Luminous. Night butterflies are attracted to moderately bright lights installed in the greenhouse or in the beds. If you cover the light source with any sticky material, by morning it will have a lot of parasites on its surface. Then it remains only to collect and destroy them.
Most readily, scoop butterflies fly to a warm greenish, yellow or orange glow.
It is convenient to use agrotechnical methods of pest control if the insect does not harm tomatoes too much. If the scoop has bred properly, the traps are unlikely to be effective.
Folk remedies for scoops on tomatoes
Homemade preparations help to get rid of scoops on tomatoes in a greenhouse or in the ground. To combat the parasite, you can use:
- Garlic infusion. The arrows of the vegetable crop are crushed in a volume of 500 g, poured into a large jar and pour 3 liters of water. The remedy is insisted for a week in a closed form, after which it is filtered. To combat the scoop, about 60 ml of the resulting solution is added to a bucket of water and 50 g of soap chips are poured into the same place.
Spray tomatoes with garlic infusion when fighting scoops up to three times a month
- Kerosene solution. To prepare an insecticide, dilute 1 g of laundry soap in 350 liter of hot liquid. The resulting product is mixed with 700 ml of kerosene and the entire composition is supplemented with 9 liters of pure water.
Processing tomatoes with a solution of kerosene is allowed before flowering
Use home remedies to combat the armyworm only in cloudy weather. Spraying in bright sun will help get rid of the parasite, but it will leave burns on tomato leaves.
Chemical preparations from scoops on tomatoes
If the parasite has managed to cause serious damage to the tomatoes, it is better to immediately use chemicals to fight. Popular tools include:
- Inta-Vir. In a bucket of water, dilute 8 g of powder or a tablet of the drug. A homogeneous solution is used to spray tomatoes every two weeks.
You can use Inta-Vir to fight the cutworm during the flowering period of tomatoes
- Spark. One tablet of the agent is diluted in a small amount of water, and then the resulting suspension is added with 10 liters of liquid. Processing of tomatoes as part of the fight against the cutworm is carried out at the stage of active vegetation of the crop, approximately 2 liters of the drug is enough for spraying 10 m2.
The Iskra preparation for tomatoes in the fight against cutworm can be used again after a two-week break.
Chemical agents show good effectiveness in the fight against the parasite. But they can not be used at the stage of fruit formation – toxins can accumulate in tomatoes.
Biopreparations
To get rid of scoops on tomatoes allow biological products with a mild effect:
- Bitoxibacillin. The insecticide helps well in the fight against the cutworm, it is combined with most other chemical and biological preparations. It does not accumulate in tomatoes, so it can be used at almost any stage of the growing season.
Spraying with bitoxibacillin in the fight against cutworms is allowed five days before harvest
- Agravertin. Natural neurotoxin has a depressing effect on parasites. The next day after treatment, the scoop stops eating leaves, and then dies within 2-3 days.
The protective effect of Agravertin lasts up to three weeks.
An important advantage of biological preparations is their selective action. Beneficial insects and microorganisms do not suffer from the use of such products, the fight is only against pests.
Natural enemies
The most obvious natural enemies of cutworms are birds that peck butterflies and caterpillars from leaves. However, attracting birds to the site is not always profitable – they feed not only on pests, but also on useful crops in the garden.
In the fight against the scoop, it is better to use another natural enemy – the trichogram. This insect launches its own eggs into the butterfly clutch and thus inhibits the development of the pest.
Trichogramma in the fight against the scoop is used both in the ground and in greenhouses, but in greenhouses the insect is more effective
Prevention
There are many methods of controlling the parasite, but the best way is to prevent the spread of the armyworm in principle. For this you need:
- regularly inspect landings in order to notice signs of damage in time;
- remove plant debris from the site in a timely manner;
- weed beds from weeds;
- every autumn and spring, dig up the soil to fight pest pupae.
To protect against parasites, you can plant basil, cilantro or calendula next to tomatoes – plants with a pungent odor.
Conclusion
It is necessary to fight the scoop on tomatoes, since the caterpillars of the parasite can destroy the crop. There are many ways, but they all bring an effect mainly in the initial stages of planting infection.
