This is the real disaster of our potato sites - the Colorado beetle. How much he takes away from the gardeners forces, time, nerves! Measures of struggle are different. I think that everyone who cultivates potatoes has tried many methods, drugs, preparations against "colorado as it is usually called. Manually collected, chemically poisoned, and this pest is all at all. A little bit missed - instead of green juicy leaves of potatoes - gnawed twigs, and sometimes only pencils of potato stalks leave the Colorado beetle. Methods of fighting which ones? How to fight? What are the efficacies of a Colorado potato beetle?
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- Basic information about the Colorado beetle, its characteristics
- Safe means of struggle
- Mulch and potatoes
- The Bed Bug
- Plants against the Colorado potato beetle - folk remedies
- Traps for the Colorado Beetle
- Biopreparations
- Chemical weapons
- Bordeaux mixture from the Colorado potato beetle
- Prestige from the Colorado beetle - my feedback on the experience of using the drug
- Insecticide Bankol - my experience of application
Basic information about the Colorado beetle, its characteristics
Colorado beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) - an insect of oval-convex shape, easily recognizable by five black stripes on top of each of the yellow elytra. Adult individuals of the Colorado pest winter deep under the earth, appear from above towards the end of spring. Their appetite is simply brutal. Having appeared, insects, moving on the ground, pass for a day more than one kilometer - they are looking for sources of food. At the same time, they eat mainly delicate leaves of young potatoes, but for all solanaceae (tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, others) they are very dangerous. How does the pest move? Early in the spring, creeping out of the soil where he was wintering, he can only crawl - he does not have the strength to fly. The struggle in this case is sufficiently effective, since it will not allow adult individuals to gain strength for reproduction.
Colorado beetle, photo:
.The female can lay up to five hundred bright yellow-orange eggs in small groups of 15-25 pieces. Of these eggs hatch plump orange larvae, which cause the greatest damage to the foliage of potatoes. Larvae pass through four stages of development in 2-3 weeks and finally crawl underground to pupate. During these 15-20 days they can destroy the whole potato crop.
Chemical means of struggle against the Colorado pest are now a great many, they are easy enough to use, you just have to follow certain rules. We'll talk about them later.
↑ back to content ↑Safe means of struggle
I prefer less harmful to people means or methods of struggle. There are many of them, too. But I also use chemical preparations. Sometimes you can not do without them. Best of all, the integrated use of such methods, means of struggle.
↑ back to content ↑Mulch and potatoes
By the way, as it is not strange, mulching straw with potato sprouts helps not only to fight, suppress weeds, not only protects young tubers from sunlight, retains moisture, but creates a habitat for insect predators eating the Colorado beetle, namely: ground beetles, mantis, ladybirds, some species of spiders, others.
↑ back to content ↑The Bed Bug
Look at the photo above, how cleverly the bug of perillus defeated the Colorado pest.
A good means of struggle? But there is one difficulty - the bug of perillus (its habitat America) does not tolerate our frosts, plus it can not find food in the spring, before the eggs or larvae of the Colorado beetle. All attempts to dissolve it from us have so far been unsuccessful. Probably, it is worthwhile to study our domestic insects, not to poison them, but to create conditions for them.
↑ back to content ↑Plants against the Colorado potato beetle - folk remedies
Means of plant origin are effective enough to fight against the Colorado beetle. There are some plants that do not tolerate a pest. For example, it's catnip, tansy, sage. Sow them between rows or around the perimeter of the site - the Colorado pest will overlook your potatoes. Just do not forget to mow down or cut off the tops, for example, tansy during flowering. You can not let these plants lose seeds. Otherwise, you yourself will breed the weeds in your garden.
And recently I read this information: a Colorado pest scares off a flower of Mattiol. There are other names for this plant - leopard bicornate or "night violet". The author of this means of struggle assures, the potato site will be clean from the Colorado pests, from its larvae. It is enough to sow one row of matthiol in five rows of potatoes. Sowing a night violet between the rows, you "kill two birds with one stone protect the potatoes from the Colorado insect, while enjoying the subtle fragrance of lilac-pink fragrant flowers.
.In this (2015) year I decided to try another plant from this harmful insect, its larvae - beans. I read that if you plant beans on a potato field, they will not be. There even a photo was - clean without insects bush, beans grow side by side. And now look below - this is my photo! "My" beetles near the beetle, unfortunately, do not interfere at all... The picture shows - the bush is surrounded by three (!) Bean shoots - accidentally dropped three seeds instead of one - all the same, the result is one: adult specimens probably crawled over this bush, testicles were laid, from which the red ones hatched the larvae. Now we need to either collect them, or process them.
Traps for the Colorado Beetle
Some potato farmers use such a means of struggle: traps for the Colorado beetle along the border of the potato field. This is the method of trench traps. But this method will be effective in the spring if other crops, except potatoes or solanaceae, were planted here for several years. If you plant potatoes every year in one place, in the spring this means of struggle will not work. Adult individuals, especially those overwintered, are badly killed by insecticides. These traps are effective against overwintered populations of insects after they creep out in spring from the accumulation sites, and during the autumn migration to wintering sites.
Colorado beetles usually choose for wintering sunny places facing south or west, for example, a hedgerow. They can hibernate there, where they found food in the summer, developed.
The essence of the method is as follows: on the perimeter of the potato field a trench is pulled out by a single-hulled plow or cultivator having a V-shaped knife. The walls of the trench must be steep. Its bottom is covered with a rigid black polyethylene film of width, m. The depth should be at least 30 cm, and the width at the top - from 15 to 60 cm. The slope of the side walls is 45-90 degrees.
The earth, taken from the trench, is laid on top, like a parapet, leveled. The film is firmly pressed against the walls, the bottom of the furrow without folds. At the bottom of the trench, on the sides of the film make small holes through 3 meters for draining rainwater. The ends are carefully sealed.
Once inside the trench, Colorado beetles try to get out of it through the drainage holes, but under the film (there are damp) mushrooms develop that are harmful to the pest. The film is covered with a thin layer of dust, which prevents crawling of insects from the trap.
The insects that have entered the trench die from dehydration for a week. In the spring, 75% of the overwintered individuals creep across the territory, getting there. Since pests after winter hibernation can only walk (they can not fly yet - no strength), then, looking for food, they must cross this ditch, where they roll down the steep sides of the film, die under hot the sun.
.The success of this method of combating the Colorado beetle depends on the correct choice of the location of the traps in relation to the insect wintering grounds, their readiness in the spring before the appearance of pests.
.Another way to fight - a self-made trap-bait. This method can also be attributed to the safe, since its application will not suffer your planting, soil. In the spring, when the potatoes are already planted, and a week remains until the shoots, it is necessary to cut the old tubers with lobules or halves, place in a solution of chlorophos - stand there for 24 hours. Then scatter the bait around the site. Do it better when it's cloudy, or in the evening, because under the rays of the sun the cut slices quickly dry up, cease attracting the Colorado beetle. The pest attacks the poisoned potatoes, dies. The same operation should be carried out in autumn, when the harvest is fully harvested, the tops dry, but the beetle has not yet left to winter.
One master, my fellow countryman, made a special trap-scoop for the Colorado beetle. I took roofing iron, made of it a scoop of length and height 45 cm, width 50 cm. To the butt, he attached the handle to his height. And in front the crook was lifted by 2 cm so that the insects would not crawl out of the scoop. I took the apparatus, 15 hours (!) A hundred potatoes were processed by the whole family for an hour and a half, shaking off the insects, their larvae directly into the scoop. Then they deliberately weighed the "harvest" - 4 kg 700 g collected this muck! This method of using a self-made device to combat the Colorado potato beetle proved to be very effective.
↑ back to content ↑Biopreparations
Recently, information has appeared on the new organic biopreparation of the Colorado Beetle NO. But we have not seen it on the shelves, there is no experience of use. The manufacturer of the facility is the Breton company B-actif (France). The drug contains the oil of the Neem Azadrachta. A special formula has been derived against the pest. The composition of completely organic content is safe for humans and animals. The drug has a frightening effect, which provides pheromones, blocks the function of reproduction of adults, prevents the development of larvae. You need 3 treatments per season. An aqueous solution of the preparation is prepared in the ratio: 0. The first is the treatment of the well with a hand sprayer before planting the potatoes. The second is the treatment of the first shoots. The third is two weeks after the second. 10 ml of biopreparation is enough for one treatment of a hundred parts of land. Hence for the season - 30 ml is enough (for 1 weave).
Chemical weapons
I will tell you only about those chemicals that I used myself. As you understand, there are a lot of chemical means of combating the Colorado beetle, which one is the most effective, you will not understand at once. It is difficult to orient in all the variety of drugs. Also, not always manufacturers openly report about side effects of a drug.
↑ back to content ↑Bordeaux mixture from the Colorado potato beetle
Agronomist-vegetable grower VF Chicken from st. Varenikovskaya shares the following experience of processing potatoes from pests. The method is simple. When the potatoes have risen, grows 15-25 cm (depending on the variety), you need to treat the plants with a Bordeaux liquid. The first treatment is carried out with a 1 - percentage solution (100-150 g of lime + 100-150 g of copper sulfate + 10 liters of water). The second treatment - after 12 days with a 2% solution (200 g of lime + 200 g of copper sulfate + 10 liters of water). You will not have problems with the Colorado beetle. If a third treatment is required, make it also a 2% solution. In addition, you also get rid of the disease of potatoes - phytophthors.
Prestige from the Colorado beetle - my feedback on the experience of using the drug
This etchant contains two active ingredients. One is fungicide-pencicuron, which protects plants from diseases. Another - insecticide-imidacloprid acts directly on pests. This tool has an anti-stress effect, in addition, stimulates the growth of plants.
In 2012, I purchased a Prestige etchant to treat seed tubers against a Colorado beetle. I must say that the drug is not cheap - I hesitated for a long time before I decided to buy it. The instruction says that it effectively protects the planting of potatoes from wireworm, Colorado beetle, bear, aphids, viruses, rhizoctonia, scab. Manufacturers of the drug advise potato tubers to be processed in boxes, nets, and then shake them, so that the drug is evenly distributed among the tubers. But my seed potatoes have already sprouted, it was not advisable to shake it - the shoots could break off. Processed, sprayed sprouted tubers already in the hole. The drug is bright crimson, when preparing the solution for processing, the color of the solution is not so bright, but still the potato was ruddy.
The protective period from pests - 50 days, and from diseases - 40 days from the date of treatment. After this, the drug decomposes into non-toxic compounds. The instruction warns that potatoes can be eaten only after 50 days after planting. This, of course, is alarming.
But numerous reviews of manufacturers that I found on the Internet convince that the drug from the seed tuber rises on the stem to the leaves. In the process of photosynthesis, Prestige does not participate, and therefore can not enter into the young tubers.
So, I processed the seed potatoes "Prestige" from the pest. And... I forgot about him. Then I saw that the neighbor at the dacha was cultivating his potatoes from the Colorado beetle - she decided to check her. Imagine my surprise when I saw a lot of dead adult beetles under potato bushes! There were a lot of them!
I did not expect such an effect!
Garden work is always there - I found myself many other things. Polola, hills, watered... Then came the time of the young potatoes. I counted on the calendar not 50 days, as recommended by the instruction, but 60 - just in case. Imagine my surprise when I again saw pests of different ages on their potatoes. This meant that the action of the drug "Prestige" was over - the potato leaves again became pests, their larvae edible. Of course, the potatoes had already grown, the tubers were tied up, they were poured - the Colorado beetle did not represent any danger for the crop, but... the sight was not pleasant. After all, these insects will go to winter - then spring again.
So experimentally, I came to the conclusion that the Prestige etchant does not save potatoes from the second wave of the Colorado beetle. It was necessary to process the grown up bushes with another drug.
Insecticide Bankol - my experience of application
Against the Colorado potato beetle used the drug "Bancol" several years ago. Not a bad drug. It was enough to spray potato bushes alone. Adults, as well as young individuals almost immediately died. The larvae that appeared after the treatment, also died immediately, as soon as they started eating poisoned leaves. No re-processing was needed.
But then, left as a seed potato, gave the spring a weak threadlike sprouts. Seed potatoes had to be bought. I did not pay attention to this circumstance. Next summer I again treated the potato field with this preparation - again I left without seed. Only then did I understand that Bankol suppresses the reproductive function of potatoes. I did not use it any more, and it's a pity... - I have such an effect, I mean its ability to deal with the Colorado beetle for one treatment, I have not yet met.
The creators of the drug claim that a week after processing the crops of potatoes "Bancol" decomposes into components that are finally neutralized by soil bacteria. So, if you do not leave seed potatoes - it is difficult to find the best drug against the "coloradverreditor".
.I used the money Commander, Confidor, Tantrack. What can I say?... Means are effective, but 3-4 treatments are required. And this is already labor-intensive ...
