I had to work hard to get rid of the insects. In this article you will learn: whoever eats potatoes in the ground, gnaws them directly; what methods of control exist; a type of potato pest.
Whoever eats potatoes in the ground actually gnaws and spoils the tubers
Our readers sent a photo of damaged potatoes and asked the question: who gnaws the tubers? Gardeners have different assumptions - cutworm, mole cricket, water rat, beetles. We asked a plant protection specialist to comment on the photo.
Whoever eats potatoes in the ground gnaws them right out
Here's what she said: “Judging by the photograph provided, we can say that insects do not cause such damage. Sometimes slugs eat away the tuber pulp to such a depth, but then the edges of the cavity should be smoother. In this case, I assume that the work was done by rodents, perhaps a water rat, if by that we mean a water vole (Arvicola terrestris), and not a muskrat.
But this is just a guess. You can be sure if you find long underground passages with noticeable soil emissions.
Perfect option- an ambush at night with a shovel, a hidden flashlight and a readiness to immediately dig up the ground. Although not everyone likes such adventurous diagnostics.”
Let's get to know each other better
The water vole is an animal with a short, blunt muzzle and small ears, a distant relative of hamsters. The body, covered with dark brown hair with a red tint, reaches a length of 20 cm, the pubescent tail is at least 10 cm.
The water vole is a widespread pest of agricultural crops and pastures. Harmful in gardens, vegetable gardens, and places where vegetables are stored.
It usually settles along the banks of rivers, lakes, ponds, in the vicinity of a swamp, but it can often be found far from the water - in meadows, vegetable gardens, fields.Closer to autumn, voles move to vegetable gardens and orchards, where they build settlements underground for several families. Rodents are very voracious; they can obtain food from a depth of 40–60 cm. They do not hibernate during the winter, so they are forced to make very large food reserves.
Why are there more of them?
All mouse-like rodents are characterized by sudden bursts of numbers, which is associated with their ability to reproduce. Some scientists believe that population growth coincides with cycles solar activity(according to different opinions, 11-year-olds or 7-year-olds).
It is also believed that the reason is due to improper management Agriculture.
Favorable conditions for the life and reproduction of rodents are created by shallow tillage of soil with imperfections, careless harvesting, the presence of row spacing and wide roadsides covered with weeds. In such cases, rodents have more food per small area habitat, the likelihood of their death from predators is less.
Death from natural causes
The number of mouse-like rodents can naturally decrease if they die en masse in winter during a period of sudden thaws with melting snow. Water entering the holes drives the animals out, while it freezes, blocking the exits.
In nature, voles have many enemies - foxes, ferrets, weasels, as well as feathered predators. Domestic cats also help keep your garden free of rodents. They reduce the number of mouse-like rodents and diseases in which they die in the thousands.
Control measures
There are:
- Warning:
- elimination of wide borders and roadsides overgrown with weeds;
- thorough digging of the earth;
- timely harvesting;
- constant collection of carrion fruit trees;
- in orchards, winter tying of trunks and skeletal branches of young trees spruce branches(needles down), roofing felt, nylon fabric, fine mesh metal mesh;
- periodic compaction (trampling) of snow around the trunks in winter;
- protection of beneficial birds of prey and animals.
- placing approved drugs in holes or other shelters, for example, “GryzNet-agro” - 2 capsules per hole (safety precautions must be observed, work with gloves, use special spoons or scoops, and also exclude access to the holes of other animals);
- the use of traps, which are usually installed at the entrance to rodent burrows.
Source: "sotki.ru"
Potato moth - general characteristics
Who would have thought that an unremarkable small butterfly could be so harmful and insidious? But it is so. The damage caused by potato moths is comparable only to the invasion of the Colorado potato beetle. She will destroy almost the entire crop without any remorse.
So that you understand the scale of the disaster, its activities destroy up to 80% of root crops. The world should “grate” for the harmful “treasure” to Central and South America, where the moth comes from. It was from these places that its journey around the world began and now the pest can be found in several dozen countries.
In Russia, the “debut” took place in the 80s of the 20th century, that is, not so long ago. She arrived in her fatherland with loads of tobacco and tomatoes, her favorite delicacy. Today the south of our country is a home for the potato moth.Scientifically, the potato moth is called Fluorimea. This insect is brown-gray in color with dark edges and spots on the wings and does not grow with a wingspan of more than 13 mm. With folded wings it is generally only 6-8 mm. The butterfly has an unnaturally small mouthpart, but rather long antennae.
Biological cycle - fluorimea
The hotter the air temperature, the faster the insect develops from egg to adulthood. The average transformation period is 3-4 weeks, but look at the spread of indicators depending on the temperature difference: if at +35C the mole develops in 16 days, then at +15C it is already 70, and at +10C the period is already 200 days!
The whole life process of potato moth looks like this:
- Egg.
- Larva.
- Doll. For this stage, the moth will need only 5 days in the summer season and as many as 2-3 months in the winter.
- Butterfly.
The pest remains in this stage for up to 7 days in summer and 20-35 in winter. In appearance, the egg clutch consists of embryos in the shape of a rounded oval with a width of 0.4 mm and a length of 0.8 mm.
The pearly whiteness of the egg initially changes to dark color as the embryo matures.
Before pupation there are 4 stages of molting. In summer this takes 10-20 days, and in winter 45-65. The caterpillar consists of three clearly defined segments.
In the newborn state, its length is 2 mm, its color is pale, it is naked with 3 pairs of limbs and a dark head and scutellum. When mature, the larva turns greenish (when feeding on root vegetables) or faded gray (when feeding on the vegetative part) color, is overgrown with fine bristles and is already up to 12 mm long.
Once out of the cocoon, the insect will not live long, only a few days, a maximum of a couple of weeks. During this period, she will lay up to 200 eggs after mating. The female lays eggs on inside leaf, less often in the soil or tubers exposed from the soil. The number of eggs in one clutch is from 1 to 20.
The moth's diet is simple. The larva eats the inner parts of the leaf blades of potato tops. As a result, the above-ground part of the plant dries out and then the pest moves onto the root crops, penetrates through eyes or cracks and begins to actively gnaw out the pulp.
Harm from potato moth
The most vulnerable plant is the potato.
- The bushes of the plant weaken due to partial or complete destruction of foliage.
- Damaged tubers are not suitable for food, that is, the quantity of the harvest and the quality of the vegetable suffer greatly.
- The same applies to seed material.
Signs of fluorimea infection:
- Cobwebs on potato bushes.
- “Mining” (ulceration) of leaves.
- Dead stems.
- Moves and wormholes in the peel and pulp of tubers.
- Rot at the site of damage.
Preventive and protective measures
If the affected crop is simply left in the ground or on the surface, then the moth larvae will simply climb into the ground and quietly overwinter there. This means that next year there will be a pest invasion on the plantation again. Here's how to do it:
- Take only healthy planting material and plant it in holes at least 15-20 cm deep.
- Hill up the plantings several times a season so that the tubers are “shrouded” in an earthen cover of at least 5 centimeters thick.
- Weed weeds regularly.
- Irrigate from above (rain method). This is how most butterflies will die.
- Start digging potatoes at the first signs of drying of the tops, or cut them off and destroy them by fire a few days before harvesting.
- The dug up potatoes must be taken out of the plantation, without leaving them on the field even to dry.
- Sort through the tubers and destroy the infected ones.
It is better to plant early ripening varieties first on the site. They are completely immune to the pest.
Next season you can plant a regular variety. When using chemicals to exterminate moths, choose Danadim, Ditox, Di-68, Bi-58, Rogosei-S.
Rules for storing potatoes
- Select damaged tubers.
- Ensure the temperature in the storage location does not exceed +2C.
- You can transfer the covered crop with fresh hemp (you can directly with the roots). The larvae do not like its smell, and besides, hemp stems protect the crop from rot.
- The harvest collected from different fields is stored in different boxes.
Remember that fluoromea in potatoes selected for seed material for the next season will survive the winter well and will begin its pest activity again as soon as the tubers fall into the ground in the spring.
Source: "domikdomovenka.ru"
Potato pests and their control
It is not for nothing that potatoes are called the second “bread”, because this root crop has firmly established itself on the tables and in the gardens of Russians. Probably there is no such dacha or suburban area, on which at least a few potato bushes, or even a whole potato field, would not have been planted.
Growing potatoes is not difficult: the crop is unpretentious and stable, gives good harvests, the problem lies in pests - too many insects love to feast on potatoes and their juicy shoots. Potato pests and the fight against them take up a good half of all the time that a summer resident devotes to the beds.
So, the main goal of a modern gardener is to protect potatoes from pests and dangerous diseases.All protective measures can be divided into preventive (or preventative) and real. Of course, it’s easier to deal with any problem on initial stage, and even more effectively - to warn her. In fact, there are so many potato pests that it is almost impossible to predict the appearance of one or another insect.
Most of them are transported along with planting tubers, soil, gardening tools and even with water, some beetles fly in whole flocks along with air currents (in the wind), other pests live in the ground for years, for the time being, without revealing their presence.
You need to know the “enemy” by sight, so below we will present a photo and description of potato pests that pose the most serious danger, and also propose effective measures to combat these insects.
Colorado potato beetle and wireworms
There is probably no person who does not know what the notorious “Colorado” looks like. This is a small round beetle, the body length of which can reach 1.5 cm, and its chitinous durable shell is colored with longitudinal yellow-brown stripes.
Interesting! The shade of the Colorado potato beetle's stripes and the intensity of the color of its larvae depend on the amount of carotene, because only this element is not absorbed by the pest's body and accumulates in its tissues. How more insect ate potato leaves, the “oranger” its color.
The Colorado potato beetle is the most dangerous pest, because due to its “activity” you can easily lose most of the crop.
Although the “Colorado” rarely eats potato tubers and practically does not damage them, it manages to destroy all the green mass of potato bushes in a very “timely” manner. As a rule, the period of activity of the pest and its larvae coincides with the time of flowering of potatoes and setting of tubers - potatoes simply do not form under damaged bushes, since photosynthesis is disrupted and the plant dies.
The greatest danger to green potato shoots is posed by the larvae, not the adult pests. Females and males of the Colorado potato beetle can quietly overwinter in the ground at a depth of about 30 cm, falling into a kind of sleep.
In spring, pests crawl to the surface and lay eggs on wrong side young potato leaves.After 10 days, larvae emerge from the eggs, which intensively eat foliage and young potato stems for about three weeks, then crawl underground and pupate - this is how an adult is born. For another 20 days, the young pest gains “fat” and happily eats potato tops, after which it begins laying eggs and spreading new individuals of its family.
Colorado potato beetles are dangerous for potato plantations for several reasons:
- These pests are very voracious - potato bushes simply “disappear” in a matter of hours;
- The vitality of Colorado potato beetles is truly amazing: they tolerate frosts, can live up to three years (despite the fact that the life cycle of an ordinary individual is 12 months), are able to fall into suspended animation and wait in the ground for the right moment to awaken;
- Pests fly with the wind over enormous distances (several tens of kilometers), so they can suddenly appear where they have never been (by the way, this is how “Colorados” spread throughout the world);
- Pests very quickly get used to insecticidal preparations; they can only be controlled with systemic means.
In addition to potatoes, Colorado potato beetles love other crops of the nightshade family, so they often appear on tomatoes, eggplants, and physalis. It is difficult to combat the pest; potato processing alone is not enough.
At least three times a season, the gardener will have to use special preparations or regularly collect pests by hand, while simultaneously destroying their eggs on the potato bushes.
Important! It is necessary to use the insecticide during the period when the larvae are in the second stage of development - they have not yet crawled from bush to bush. Thus, pest control will be more effective. Today there are many toxic drugs against the Colorado potato beetle (Komador, Iskra, Aktara and others), and pre-planting treatment of potato tubers with insecticides is also effective.
But it is necessary to remember about the harm to human health and refuse processing at least 20 days before harvesting potatoes. From folk remedies combating a pest such as the Colorado potato beetle can be called:
- manual collection insects;
- irrigating potato bushes with infusions of tansy, currant, celandine or basil;
- planting green manure that cleanses the soil (for example, mustard);
- compliance with crop rotation (for at least four years you should not plant potatoes and other nightshades in the same place);
- alternating potato bushes with crops that repel pests (coriander or legumes, for example).
Another inveterate pest of potatoes is a small worm, about 2-2.5 cm long, colored red or yellow. This is the larva of a click beetle, popularly called “wireworm”. The worm was so named because of its hard body, similar to a metal wire.
Click beetles themselves do not eat potatoes, so they are not considered pests. In nature, these insects live in thickets of wheatgrass and feed on the tender young roots of this weed. Hence the main one preventative measure control of the wireworm pest - timely and regular weeding in order to prevent the beds from becoming overgrown with wheatgrass and other weeds.
You can find out about the damage to potatoes by the wireworm pest by examining the tubers: numerous passages of small diameter will tell about the life activity of the larvae.
The passages in potatoes themselves are not so dangerous as the fact that they are often a “gateway” for infections and nematodes. As a result, potato tubers rot and become unfit for consumption. Appearance bushes affected by the pest is also characteristic: the stems, riddled with passages, wither and become unviable, as a result of which the potato bush lags behind in development and dies.
To protect potatoes from such a pest as wireworm, it is necessary to take comprehensive measures:
- Fertilize the soil under the potatoes with ammonia preparations.
- Reduce the acidity of the soil by scattering quicklime over its surface.
- Plant plants that attract wireworms along with potatoes.
- Pull out weeds by the roots, often weed and loosen the soil between the potato beds.
- Treat potato tubers before planting using insecticidal preparations (such as “Taboo”).
Important! Pre-planting treatment is necessary only if click beetle larvae were noticed on potatoes last season.
Cicadas
In appearance and the type of damage to potatoes, leafhoppers resemble aphids or potato flea beetles. These are small pests that can nevertheless cause significant damage to the potato crop, because they feed on cell sap, damage leaves, which leads to withering and drying out of the bushes.
Pest control measures are purely preventive - treating tubers before planting using insecticidal preparations such as Tabu or Cruiser. If leafhoppers have appeared on the site for the first time, you can try irrigating the potato rows with Karate Zeon.
Potato flea beetle
The most dangerous pest of potato tops is the small brown flea beetle. There are many types of such pests, they are distributed throughout the world. It is adult flea beetles, reaching three millimeters in length, that pose a danger to potato leaves.
But the larvae of this pest - thin and elongated bodies with three pairs of short legs - can infect the root system of potato bushes, which will lead to withering of the plant and loss of yield.
Attention! Factors such as: late boarding tubers and dry, hot weather.You can tell that a potato is infested with a flea beetle by looking at the depressions in the leaves that are characteristic of this pest, which turn brown and dry out over time. An effective means of controlling the pest is the insecticide “Tabu”; treating the bushes with phosphamide at a concentration of 0.2% also works well (potatoes need to be treated every 10 days until the tubers set).
Adult beetles can be caught using glue baits. If the garden is small, spraying potato bushes with chamomile infusion or dusting with a mixture of tobacco dust and wood ash.
Potato nematodes
One of the microorganisms harmful to potatoes is the nematode. These are microscopic worms that cannot be seen with the naked eye. But their presence is very clearly visible from the state of the potato bushes: they are depressed, lagging behind in development, do not form tubers at all or form very small tubers.
Important! A characteristic sign of the nematode is yellowing of the lower leaves on potato bushes. Female nematodes are round, and males are oblong, but you can only see the frozen eggs of these pests - cysts.
It is no coincidence that pests “freeze” their eggs: this is done so that the offspring can survive the winter and also wait for a harvest year.
In the form of cysts, the nematode can remain in the ground for up to ten years, after which it wakes up and develops as usual. Externally, pest eggs look like millet grains; they usually stick to the roots and tubers of potatoes.
Potatoes are affected by three types of nematodes:
- Stem nematode shows its presence by shiny spots gray appearing on potato tubers.
- Golden nematodes, like their cousins, are very tenacious and very dangerous. Pests are transferred to potatoes along with soil and water; tubers can be infested with gardening tools.
Under the gray film you can see the pulp destroyed by the pest, turned into dust. Under a microscope, you can also see the pests themselves - nematodes accumulate on the border of the affected area and healthy pulp. The stem nematode penetrates potato tubers along the stems, damaging them along the way.
These lumps grow, merge, and ultimately deform the roots and tubers of the potato. Additionally, infections and fungal spores settle in the wounds.
Advice! To reduce nematode attacks to a minimum, it is recommended to grow only early ripening varieties potatoes and plant tubers as early as possible. This is due to the development cycle of the pest, which is 60 days.
The pest can be controlled with insecticides such as Tiazone or Carbamide. It is very important to observe crop rotation, planting potato areas with corn, beans or perennial herbs.
Potato bollworm and potato moth
It is not the brown moths themselves that pose a danger to potatoes, but their larvae - light-colored caterpillars. Pests overwinter on wheatgrass, love shade and high humidity, but, in principle, cutworms are unpretentious and can live in any place.
The cutworm larva gnaws its way to potato tubers through the neck of the stem, thereby leading to the death of the entire bush and damaging the crop. In addition to insecticidal preparations, the pest can be controlled by removing weeds and placing pheromone traps between rows.
Externally, the potato moth is similar to the cutworm, but differs in that it is active not seasonally, but throughout the entire time until the temperature drops below +10 degrees.
The potato moth is dangerous primarily because of its fertility - in one summer season, up to eight generations of this pest can appear. Adults do not harm potato bushes, but the larvae damage both the above-ground parts and tubers.
You can protect your area from moths in the following ways:
- store potatoes at a temperature of 5 degrees;
- plant well-warmed tubers;
- hill up bushes high;
- dig the soil deeply in spring and autumn.
Important! If potatoes are infested with moths, before digging up the tubers, you must cut off the tops and burn them. When the tubers are already infected, after digging they are treated with lepidocide.
How to deal with potato pests is, in principle, clear - you need to use special insecticides. But the gardener must understand that such substances are toxic not only to insects, but also to humans.
To ensure that the harvest is safe and as useful as possible, it is better to carry out preventive measures, such as maintaining crop rotation, disinfection, and planting green manure.If the pest attacked suddenly, you can try folk remedies or biological protection. Toxic substances should be a last resort, which is used after all unsuccessful attempts to save the potatoes.
Source: "fermilon.ru"
How to treat potatoes before planting - from mole cricket
The common mole cricket is one of the most unpleasant garden pests. Waking up from a long hibernation in winter, at the end of May it comes to the surface, becomes active, mates and bears offspring. After a month, fully mature individuals begin to actively dig and devour everything in their path that they come across as they dig.
Being a gourmet, the mole cricket has little interest in the roots of tough weeds. She prefers the sweet roots of young tomatoes, eggplants, cabbage, red peppers and, of course, potatoes.
In this material, we tried to put together all the scattered data on how to treat potatoes before planting in order to protect them from mole crickets, as well as protect them during the growing season.
We really hope that our advice will be useful both to novice vegetable growers and to those who have been faced with such a problem as mole crickets for quite some time and now do not know what to do with it.
Protecting potatoes from mole cricket
Potatoes are one of the most difficult plants to cultivate. Plowing large areas, planting, weeding, hilling, and cleaning take a lot of time and effort, and with the arrival of “Westernized” pests in the form of the Colorado potato beetle, gardeners have even more work to do.
Despite the fact that today it is much cheaper to buy potatoes at the nearest grocery store, many people, in the old fashioned way, stubbornly try to grow them themselves, stubbornly enduring all the hardships and hardships, as they say. It cannot be said that the mole cricket is a serious pest of potatoes.
In addition to the fact that populations of this insect very rarely reach levels that could significantly harm a potato plantation, the potato itself is quite resistant to this kind of pest.If only because one potato has several rooting eyes, each of which subsequently becomes a full-fledged bushy plant. And then the death of several bushes will not play any role against the background of planting on several acres.
There is much more damage to potatoes from the Colorado potato beetle and depleted soil than from the unfortunate mole cricket, which suddenly bothered gardeners so much. However, there are cases when this insect densely inhabited a single vegetable garden and almost completely destroyed the entire crop.
It is for such a situation, or more precisely, to prevent it, that you should use preventive preparation, which should protect potatoes not only from mole crickets, but also from other pests.
Agrotechnical work
Not least important in preventing the development of pest populations in garden plots is the implementation standard requirements agrotechnical works that have been known to mankind for hundreds of years, but for some reason many people forget about them.
- Compliance with annual crop rotation.
- Timely destruction of weeds, preferably using technical methods without the use of herbicides.
- The herbal mass of weeds should be taken outside the garden plot or stored to obtain humus in specially designated places, observing sanitary boundaries to the nearest bed of at least 3 meters.
- Timely cultivation of the soil during the growth process will not only ensure better growth for plants, but will also reduce the number of pests that prefer a dense crust on the surface of the earth.
- Shredding of post-harvest residues is necessary in late autumn along with plowing.
- Compliance with the watering regime is extremely important, especially in the case of the mole cricket problem, since the insect prefers damp places. Underwatering will dry out the plants, and overwatering will encourage the appearance of pests.
It is no secret that it is very useful to change plots in the garden area, each year for different crops. This approach not only reduces the number of pests inherent in one crop, but improves yield.
It must be remembered that the growth of weeds must not only be prevented at the moment they gain strength, which often happens, but in the early stages of germination. In short, beds with cultivated plants must be constantly clean.
Considerable importance for subsequent quality growth cultivated plants, has pre-planting treatment of potato tubers, for example, using special chemicals.
Also, for planting it is necessary to choose only strong and viable seed. You shouldn’t hope that a dead potato will grow into a beautiful, productive bush for three buckets of potatoes.
Lures
Mole cricket baits are one of the effective ways to reduce the population of this insect in a single area of a garden plot. Insects are quite large and there are relatively few of them on square meter. The most effective baits for this type of insect are the following.
A concentrated aqueous solution based on soap, washing powder or dishwashing liquid is an active agent that will force the mole cricket to leave its underground hiding places. The soap film closes the insect's spiracles, forcing it to suffocate and strive upward, where there is more air.
At this point, you can catch some nice representatives of this species. The smell of hops and malt attracts mole crickets very much.
This effect is used to make homemade baits in the form of beer plastic bottles with the remains of beer, which should be dug into the ground up to the neck, leaving a couple of centimeters from it on the surface. It is better to dig at an angle of 45 degrees to the soil surface.
Mole crickets, lured by the smell of beer aroma, attack the bottle over the next three days. This method is similar to the previous one, only in place of beer you can use dissolved honey, sugar syrup or molasses. Molasses is a by-product of making sugar from sugar beets.
Pits with a small amount of fresh, unrotted manure lure mole crickets with their warmth. Having made such traps around the garden in early spring, every 2-3 days you can take a fairly good “harvest” of mole crickets.All of the above methods can be called humane, since they do not involve poisoning the mole cricket. If you need to destroy the pest at the time of catching, you can use the following recipe for poisoned bait. Wheat, barley or pearl barley should be boiled until half cooked, then after cooling, add the contents of the BI-58 ampoule and vegetable oil.
The ratio of ingredients is approximately the following - for 1 kg of grain - 1 ampoule of chemical and 5 tablespoons of oil. By the way, instead of BI-58, you can add other active insecticides, for example, dust or chlorophos, the main quality here is their extremely harsh and bad smell.
In the future, the area of greatest dominance of mole crickets should be divided into squares with a side of 50 cm with grooves 3-5 cm deep.
After pre-wetting the grooves with plain water, the grain should be evenly distributed and covered with earth. It should take about a couple of hours before the mole crickets begin to crawl to the surface of the soil, where they quickly die.
Insect corpses should be collected and disposed of so that birds or animals are not poisoned by them. So as not to bother with self-production lures, you can purchase ready-made products. The most effective chemicals in this series are Medvetox-U and Fenoxin-plus.
To protect the potatoes, you should make similar grooves in the center of the row spacing, sprinkle the bait evenly over them, sprinkle with earth and water. In the future, the effect will be similar to that of using a homemade poison bait.
Processing potatoes before planting
To protect your potato garden from possible damage by mole crickets, the most effective way will be pre-sowing treatment of tubers with working chemical solutions. To do this, potatoes prepared for planting are soaked for 1.5-2 hours in a prepared aqueous solution of one of the following commercial products:
- Prestige 29% SC.
- Mospilan 20% SK.
- Gaucho 35% and 70% SC.
- Cruiser 35% SC.
The concentration of any of the above products is 0.1-0.2%, which in terms of dry matter is approximately one teaspoon per liter of water. Potatoes must be planted immediately after processing. The finished solution loses its effectiveness after a day, so you should use the entire product at once.
Folk methods of struggle
In the arsenal of fighting mole crickets, old summer residents have many of the most different instruments, which are impossible to list in one article. We tried to select the most effective and efficient ones. Mole crickets, like all insects, are afraid of the smell of plants. essential oils, especially - coniferous species trees.
Therefore, if possible, then throughout the entire period of potato growth, from planting to digging up the crop, it will be very useful to lay branches with pine, fir, or better yet, cedar needles between the rows. Chicken droppings, due to the large amount of lime, can harm the growth of potatoes, but at the same time, this product perfectly repels mole crickets.
To choose the golden mean, you should take about 2 kg of chicken manure in a bucket of water, stir until smooth, and then dilute the resulting so-called concentrate in water to obtain a working solution in a ratio of 1:5.
Watering between rows should be carried out at the rate of half a liter per square meter of garden area.Naphthalene and kerosene also repel mole crickets. In order not to harm the soil, one glass of any of these substances per bucket of sand will be a suitable concentration of the finished product, a path of which should be buried around the perimeter of the potato field and between the rows.
Our readers sent a photo of damaged potatoes and asked the question: who gnaws the tubers? Gardeners have different assumptions - cutworm, mole cricket, water rat, beetles...
We asked plant protection specialist Irina IVANOVA to comment on the photo. Here's what she said:
“Judging by the photograph provided, we can say that insects do not cause such damage. Sometimes slugs eat away the tuber pulp to such a depth, but then the edges of the cavity should be smoother. In this case, I assume that the work was done by rodents, perhaps a water rat, if by that we mean a water vole (Arvicola terrestris), and not a muskrat. But this is just a guess. You can be sure if you find long underground passages with noticeable soil emissions. The ideal option is an ambush at night with a shovel, a hidden flashlight and a readiness to immediately dig up the ground. Although not everyone likes such adventurous diagnostics.”
Let's get to know each other better
The water vole, an animal with a short, blunt muzzle and small ears, is a distant relative of hamsters. The body, covered with dark brown hair with a red tint, reaches a length of 20 cm, the pubescent tail is at least 10 cm.
The water vole is a widespread pest of agricultural crops and pastures. Harmful in gardens, vegetable gardens, and places where vegetables are stored. It usually settles along the banks of rivers, lakes, ponds, in the vicinity of a swamp, but it can often be found far from the water - in meadows, vegetable gardens, fields. Closer to autumn, voles move to vegetable gardens and orchards, where they build settlements underground for several families. Rodents are very voracious, they can get food from a depth of 40-60 cm. They do not hibernate during the winter, so they are forced to make very large food reserves.
Why are there more of them?
All mouse-like rodents are characterized by sudden bursts of numbers, which is associated with their ability to reproduce. Some scientists believe that the increase in numbers coincides with solar activity cycles (according to different opinions, 11-year or 7-year). It is also believed that the reason is poor agricultural practices. Favorable conditions for the life and reproduction of rodents are created by shallow tillage of soil with imperfections, careless harvesting, the presence of row spacing and wide roadsides covered with weeds. In such cases, rodents have more food in a small habitat area and are less likely to die from predators.
Death from natural causes
The number of mouse-like rodents can naturally decrease if they die en masse in winter during a period of sudden thaws with melting snow. Water entering the holes drives the animals out, while it freezes, blocking the exits. In nature, voles have many enemies - foxes, ferrets, weasels, as well as feathered predators. Domestic cats also help keep your garden free of rodents. They reduce the number of mouse-like rodents and diseases in which they die in the thousands.
Control measures
Warning:
Elimination of wide borders and roadsides overgrown with weeds; thorough digging of the earth; timely harvesting; constant collection of fruit tree carrion; in orchards, tying trunks and skeletal branches of young trees for the winter with spruce branches (needles down), roofing felt, nylon fabric, fine-mesh metal mesh; periodic compaction (trampling) of snow around the trunks in winter; protection of beneficial birds of prey and animals.
Fighter:
Placement of approved drugs in holes or other shelters, for example, “GryzNet-agro” - 2 capsules per hole (safety precautions must be observed, work with gloves, use special spoons or scoops, and also exclude access to the holes of other animals); the use of traps, which are usually installed at the entrance to rodent burrows.
Of all the potato diseases during its cultivation, the main danger is late blight, which appears as early as June. First, small black or brown spots appear on the lower leaves, then they increase in size, the foliage turns yellow, the tops lie down and die. Phytophthora never develops on soils rich in copper, so preventive application of copper during planting and spraying the tops with a solution of a copper preparation at the initial stage of potato growth perfectly helps plants cope with this scourge.
How to deal with potato late blight
Before boarding planting material should be treated with “Fitosporin” or a solution of copper sulfate (Bordeaux mixture or “Hom”) according to the standards specified in the instructions. Before the last hilling, repeat the treatment. If late blight does appear, then spraying should be done again.
Photo of late blight on potatoes
We must remember that spraying with “Fitosporin” can be carried out at any time, just before eating the potatoes must be washed with water and only then peeled or boiled in their skins. But after treatment with preparations containing copper (Bordeaux, copper sulfate, "Hom"), 3 weeks must pass before it can be eaten.
Potato scab - causes and how to fight
Also check out these articles
Potato scab is detected after harvesting. It appears in the form of black convex spots on tubers. The cause is an excess nitrogen or calcium content in the soil, usually due to too large doses of nitrogen fertilizers, or when applying fresh manure (how to use manure), as well as during spring deoxidation of the soil.
Next year, when planting, a few crystals should be added to the hole. boric acid or water the soil before planting with a solution of boric acid (2 g per 10 liters of water). In dry and hot summers, scab appears more strongly. On taste qualities and it does not affect storage.
Sometimes the tops of plants become curled and bunched up, growth stops - this is a viral disease, the bush must be immediately torn out and burned so that insects do not transfer the disease to healthy plants.
Sometimes potato tubers crack. Most often this is caused by heavy watering or prolonged rains after a long drought: the amount of water in the tubers sharply increases, and the peel breaks, then the tear is overgrown with peel. But there are also varieties with such uneven growth of tubers, causing them to crack. In large tubers, voids are formed due to uneven supply of moisture to the soil.
Colorado potato beetle and means to combat it
Of the pests, the most terrible is the Colorado potato beetle. Its salmon-orange larva, small at first, grows quickly and turns into a cute-looking little bug with yellow longitudinal stripes on black wings. This cute bug, like its offspring, is extremely fertile and voracious. If there are only a few beetles, collect them together with the larvae in a jar of salt water and then destroy them. Birds (with the exception of guinea fowl) do not peck them, so feeding beetles to chickens is useless.
If there are a lot of beetles, you will have to use pesticides against them. The beetle has long adapted to most of them, but there is a new drug “Sonnet”, which so far copes well with the beetle. As soon as you notice the first beetle or its larva, immediately treat the entire potato field with Sonnet. One ampoule of the drug, diluted in 10 liters of water, is enough to treat hundreds of plantings just once per season. The drug is absorbed by the leaves and functions in them throughout the season without penetrating into the tubers. “Sonnet” destroys the chitinous covers of adult beetles (their wings disappear), and the larvae do not grow wings. Such insects cannot mate and produce offspring.
The best preparation for pre-planting treatment of potatoes against the Colorado potato beetle is. The leader among means for protection against adult beetles and larvae is recognized -.
How to get rid of potato wireworm
Another fairly common potato pest is the wireworm (a light, hard, durable worm 3-4 cm long). This is the larva of a click beetle that gnaws tunnels in potato tubers. The wireworms must be collected and torn in half when digging the soil.
Sometimes it is advised to bury potato tubers cut into pieces shallowly and mark this place with a stick. The wireworm will come for a treat. After 3-4 days, dig up the soil and destroy the larvae. It's tedious and unproductive. If there are a lot of wireworms (and they live in wheatgrass thickets), then add “Bazudin” to the hole when planting potatoes - this is a chemical preparation, but it is neutralized by the time the potatoes are dug. Now a new biological product, Nemabact, has appeared, which causes the death of potato wireworm. Essentially, this is a symbiosis of a bacterium and a predatory nematode, which, penetrating inside the wireworm, eats it from the inside and then leaves the empty shell.
How to deal with a mole cricket
Sometimes potato tubers are literally eaten by soil-dwelling pests: the mole cricket (a large, 4-5 cm long, insect that resembles a crayfish), gnawing cutworms (dirty brown naked caterpillars of a large hairy night moth), the larva of the May beetle (a thick white caterpillar with a light brown head ) or field mice.
You can use the drug “Thunder” against mole crickets; it also works against cutworms.
You can make traps against mole crickets: in the fall, dig holes 40-50 cm deep and fill them with horse manure. The mole cricket will make a nest in them and stay for the winter. This place should be marked with a stick, and in the spring the pest should be dug up and destroyed along with its offspring. When a potato field is heavily infested with this pest, it is treated with “Carbation” in the fall.
The May beetle larva can also cause significant damage to potato roots. The beetle and its larva must be destroyed everywhere.
Another nasty pest is the herbivorous nematode. Nematodes are small (no more than 0.5 mm), transparent, and therefore not visible to the eye thread-like worms that literally filled the whole world. These are the most numerous inhabitants of our planet. They are present everywhere, including in the cell sap of plants. When nematodes colonize a plant too densely, it begins to grow and develop poorly. In potatoes, this manifests itself in a sharp decrease in yield and crushing of tubers.
During the winter, the potato nematode comes to the surface of the tuber and turns into a cyst - tiny balls resembling poppy dewdrops appear on the potato peel. Nematode cysts can be stored in the soil for several years and, as soon as potatoes are planted in this field, they will immediately turn into worms that will penetrate the tubers. Cysts are easily transported on the soles of shoes from place to place. The nematodes themselves move rather slowly.
What to do if the potato harvest is bad
If your potato yields have sharply decreased during good care and healthy planting material, then perhaps your soil has become depleted after growing potatoes in one place for a long time, or you have been using your own planting material for too long (the varieties have accumulated a lot of viral infection, although they look normal in appearance), or the field is too heavily populated nematode.
It would be a good idea to move the potato field to another place for several years, but if this is not possible, then at least improve the soil. To improve the soil health, sow the field immediately after harvesting potatoes with winter rye. In the spring, mow it and dig it up along with the greenery and roots. And only then plant potatoes. When planting in the hole, add Azotobacterin, Phosphorobacterin, AMB, Fitosporin, sow white mustard.
Update your planting material. Try not to buy varieties of foreign selection, which usually quickly accumulate viral infection. Make your planting material healthier by growing some of your planting material from sprouts or seeds. Plant nematode-resistant varieties (but no more than two years in one place, so as not to breed a nematode resistant to this variety).
The potato crop can be seriously damaged by various insects. Since potato pests cause serious damage to plants and can reduce the yield, you need to know how to properly deal with them.
We will tell you how to recognize the main pests and properly combat Colorado potato beetles, wireworms and nematodes using chemicals and traditional methods.
Main potato pests: their description and treatment
Potato tubers and bushes can be exposed to pests at all stages of cultivation. In our article you will find necessary information about these insects, their photos, descriptions and treatment methods that will help save the harvest.
The danger comes from potato moths, mole crickets and aphids. All of them cause damage to plants, slowing down their growth and tuber formation. Detailed description pests and methods of controlling them will be given below.
Golden nematode (methods and control measures)
A nematode is a small helminth that feeds on the tissues of tubers and roots. There are several types of nematodes, but the greatest danger is the golden nematode (Figure 2).
The larvae hatch in the spring and penetrate the potato roots. By feeding on tissues, they greatly slow down the growth of the plant. The leaves of an infected bush are small, yellow and quickly wither. When infected with a nematode, the tubers on the bush are too small, and there are many insects; there may be no harvest at all.
Note: Mass infection of the golden nematode requires the introduction of quarantine. The soil on the site is treated with special chemicals and are not used for growing crops for another 5 years.
The following means are used to combat nematodes::
- Before the beginning field work the soil is treated with urea and sprinkled with lime after harvesting;
- Fertilizing with liquid chicken droppings can destroy nematode larvae in the soil. Fertilizers are applied immediately after planting;
- All planting material is carefully inspected before planting;
- Infected bushes are dug up and treated with bleach in a specially dug hole.
Figure 2. Golden nematode and signs of pest damage on tubers To prevent nematode infection, potatoes should not be planted in one place for more than three years in a row. But if pests do appear, you need to treat the plantings with Bazudin, which eliminates not only nematodes, but also wireworms.
Wireworms in potatoes: how to get rid of them
These are beetle larvae that can reside and develop in the soil for several years. At favorable conditions the larvae awaken and begin to destroy the crop (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Symptoms of wireworm damage Insects are especially active when the soil is insufficiently moist. They penetrate roots and tubers, gnawing holes in them, reducing the quality of products and making plants more susceptible to disease.
How to deal with wireworms on potatoes? First of all, you need to plow the soil deeply to destroy the larvae. In addition, during the growing process, it is necessary to pull out weeds, and lay out bait (for example, pieces of raw potatoes) in small areas. They will attract nematode larvae and can be destroyed by hand.
How to treat potatoes before planting
Preparations for this insect are very diverse, and differ in the principle of action and price. Similar preparations are used to treat tubers before planting. This allows you to strengthen the plants and make them more resistant to diseases and pest larvae.
To treat potatoes before planting, the drug Prestige or the Russian analogue Tabu is most often used. Tubers can be processed in containers by simply spraying them with the preparation. In addition, you can prepare a solution and add it to the wells directly upon planting.
Remedies for wireworms
How to get rid of wireworms on potatoes if they do appear? The same preparation Prestige is used to treat bushes. However, there are other means that are similar in action.
Plantings can be treated with the chemicals Cruiser, Picus, Imidor or Commander. In composition they are close to Prestige, but, in addition to wireworms, they are capable of destroying larvae and adults of other pests, in particular the Colorado potato beetle and nematodes.
Chemicals for treating potatoes against wireworms
To protect potatoes during cultivation, they are treated with special chemicals. They can be used both for pre-sowing treatment and for pest control directly during the cultivation of vegetables.
Anti-wireworm medications include(Figure 4):
- Cruiser- a systemic insecticide that destroys many ground and underground insects;
- Celeste Top- an effective remedy against diseases and pests;
- Voliam Flexi- an insecticide consisting of two components. Used against aphids, Colorado potato beetles and wireworms;
- Force- a drug that quickly destroys larvae even before tuber damage begins.
Figure 4. Anti-wireworm drugs Chemical products are regularly updated, so when purchasing, it is better to familiarize yourself with the assortment and choose several drugs at once for a complex effect.
How to deal with the Colorado potato beetle
This is the main potato pest. A massive invasion of these insects can lead to the fact that in a short time, only bare stems will remain of green bushes (Figure 5).
Figure 5. Damage to crops by Colorado potato beetles After emergence, potatoes need to be treated with drugs against this type of pest.
The better to poison
How to deal with these insects on potatoes? Of course, with the help of special chemicals. Common medications include (Figure 6):
- System chemicals Mospilan, Sonet, Commander, Iskra. They are used three times throughout the entire growing season. But the last treatment should be carried out no later than 3 weeks before harvest.
- Preparations of fungal and bacterial origin Fitoverm, Boverin and Agrovertin quickly destroy young larvae. After one treatment, the drug continues to act, causing the death of insects within a week.
Figure 6. Remedies against the Colorado potato beetle You cannot use the same drugs for several seasons in a row. Insects gradually become accustomed to certain products, so chemicals need to be alternated.
Remedies for the Colorado potato beetle
Folk remedies also exist. But they are only suitable for small areas, since their use involves significant labor costs. For example, beetles and their larvae can be collected by hand. But since insects easily fly from one bush to another, this procedure will have to be repeated constantly.
Also, to combat insects, spraying with infusions of mint, poplar, basil and black currant leaves is used. The strong smell of the liquid will repel insects. The first treatment is carried out immediately after emergence and subsequently repeated several times per season. Beans or coriander can be planted next to potatoes. The scent of these plants will help reduce the number of pests.
In addition, there is a distracting way to fight. To do this, you need to plant a few tubers before the rest. Large green bushes will attract pests and will be much easier to harvest and destroy.
From the video you will learn a recipe for preparing an environmentally friendly means of combating the Colorado potato beetle.
The potato moth is a gray moth whose caterpillars destroy leaves and stems of plants, but do not touch ripe tubers (Figure 7).
To prevent damage to bushes by moths, you need to control the quality of planting material. The larvae can be destroyed by heating the tubers in warm water at a temperature of 40 degrees. In addition, when planting, tubers need to be buried to a depth of at least 15 cm, and during the growing process, hilling should be carried out several times and weeds should be destroyed.
Figure 7. Appearance of potato moth In the fall, you need to deeply plow the soil to destroy the remaining larvae and butterflies, and treat the tubers with a solution of methyl bromide before storing them in storage. At mass destruction spraying with insecticides (Lepidotsid, Entobacterin, etc.) is used. Spraying is carried out until the ovaries form. This will weaken the insects and delay the development of young individuals.
Protection and prevention
Preventing the spread of pests will help maintain plant health. First of all, for this you need to carry out deep plowing of the soil in the fall. This will help destroy any larvae remaining in the soil.
During the growing process, it is recommended to hill up and remove weeds several times. Such plants may contain adults and larvae. Hilling allows you to loosen the soil to a greater depth, which also helps eliminate young insects. In addition, before planting, you can treat the tubers with special preventive agents, and use insecticides during the growing process.
Facilities
There are effective folk remedies that will help prevent pest infestations. However, they are labor intensive and do not have the effectiveness of chemicals. At the same time, in small areas the use of folk remedies can be very effective.
During planting, you can throw some wood ash into the hole. It will repel insects and prevent larvae from developing. In addition, plants with a pronounced scent (for example, calendula, basil or dill) can be planted next to potatoes.
An effective means of protecting tubers is the treatment of planting material with a solution of potassium permanganate. The ash solution has the same effect. The ash is simply dissolved in a bucket and the potatoes are dipped into the liquid. Such treatment helps protect planting material from diseases and pests.
Drugs
A more effective means of pest control is considered chemicals. The most popular drug for prevention is Prestige, and its domestic analogue Tabu.
The prepared solution of the drug can simply be poured into the hole when planting or sprayed on the tubers a few days before planting. After processing, the potatoes must be dried.
The author of the video will tell you how to properly deal with potato pests.
No matter how hard we try to grow a rich harvest, there will always be a few obstacles on the path to success. One of these troubles is insects that mistakenly believe that we grow potatoes for them. Potato pests and their control are the topic of our article today.
To minimize the risk of crop loss, you need, as they say, to know the enemy by sight. Being aware of the necessary measures to defeat the pest, even a novice farmer will be able to ensure the safety of the potato bed.
Colorado beetle
Widely known striped pests that feed on potato leaves pose one of the most formidable dangers to the beds of Russian farmers. Both adult insects and their larvae have an excellent appetite, and can destroy both leaves and young stems of potato bushes in a short period of time. 
In addition, the Colorado potato beetle actively reproduces and can travel considerable distances in search of food. Another source of infection is the soil in the beds, if potatoes are grown in the same place year after year: the larvae accumulate in the surface layers of the soil, and with the arrival of heat they come to the surface, expect young greens. The beetle poses a particular danger during the flowering period, when the crop forms tubers; if preventive measures are not taken, up to half of the harvest can be lost.
Wireworms
Very tough larvae of the click beetle, colored yellow and reaching a length of 3 cm, infect the root system, in particular, young root shoots, and sometimes tubers are also affected. The source of infection can be another garden scourge - the annoying wheatgrass. 
The pest loves this weed very much, so as soon as you find traces of the larvae, immediately begin cleaning the potato beds. How to recognize a wireworm? It’s very simple - the tubers of affected plants are covered with tunnels left behind by the larvae; accordingly, they can be affected by various infections and diseases, and often the root crops simply rot on the vine. In addition, by eating tubers and young root shoots, wireworms necessarily damage the root of the plant, which inevitably leads to a lag in the latter's development.
Nematode
Certainly one of the most dangerous pests, which poses a serious danger to potato tubers and root systems. The female nematode has a spherical body, and the male has a classic worm-shaped body. At the initial stage, the female's body is colored White color, but gradually it changes to brown.
After fertilization occurs, the female begins to lay eggs, the number of which is amazing; each individual is capable of laying several thousand. After this, the pest turns into a cyst and remains in the soil. The fight against nematodes is complicated by the fact that the viability of larvae and cysts in the soil can persist for decades. 
It is not difficult to recognize the disease: a plant affected by this pest significantly lags behind in development, its lower leaves wither, and the potato bush itself produces few shoots. A plant affected by a nematode has a weakened root system and practically does not form tubers (or forms them too small). Damage to tubers is difficult to notice at the initial stage; they appear at the time of harvesting - upon careful examination, you can see small cysts on the surface of the potato.
A nematode can get into your garden bed different ways: sometimes infection occurs along with planting material, sometimes when using someone else’s or untreated equipment, and there are cases when gardeners themselves brought the pest on the soles of their shoes. That is why it is recommended to thoroughly wash the planting material with a brush, and, if affected plants are identified, to burn them away from the garden bed.
Medvedka
A harmful insect whose habitat is soil. The danger from the mole cricket lies in the fact that, breaking through tunnels in the upper layers of the soil, it gnaws through root shoots and damages tubers. In terms of the degree of damage caused, the mole cricket can be compared with a three-year-old cockchafer larva. 
The main signs indicating that a mole cricket has settled in your potato beds are the following:
- on the surface of the beds you can see small round holes, going deep;
- in the process of life, the insect leaves burrows that are noticeable even on the surface of the soil;
- those plants that have been attacked by mole crickets wither and quickly die.
Cutworm caterpillars
At first glance, a harmless butterfly, but how much damage their caterpillars can cause to potato plantings.
The fight against such a pest should only be carried out comprehensively, otherwise tangible results will not be achieved. Insects are not very picky, they are found everywhere, but they especially like shaded, damp areas. The cutworm prefers to overwinter on wheatgrass roots, and with the arrival of warmer weather the larva moves to potatoes.
The caterpillar gnaws the stem of a potato bush above the root collar and penetrates inside the tuber. So, it not only affects an individual potato, but also makes the entire plant suffer.
Potato moth
The cutworm-like insect poses a danger not only in summer: it continues to actively develop even in storage conditions where the temperature does not exceed 10 degrees. And during the summer months, potato moths can produce up to eight generations of pests. Like many insects, adults are of little danger to garden beds, but the larvae, feeding on tubers and stems of potato bushes, cause significant damage to plants.
Video “Potato Pests”
From the video you will learn about potato pests.
Control measures
Potato pests and measures to combat them must be individualized, since they are diverse. So, to combat the Colorado potato beetle, you can simply collect the larvae from the bushes, regularly weeding the beds, and the wireworm can be defeated by adhering to the rules of crop rotation and liming the soil.
Strict control over the seed will help prevent the appearance of the nematode, and the mole cricket will disappear thanks to the bait you prepare yourself (from boiled millet or corn treated with metaphos).
Use of fungicides
But if the options traditional methods fighting is not for you, you can always resort to more modern way, and use fungicides for potatoes, especially since it is unlikely that it will be possible to defeat, for example, the cutworm or potato moth without special preparations. Thus, the drug Decis is effective against cutworms, and potato moths die from a 10% solution of karbofos.
Video “How to control pests”
From the video you will learn how to deal with potato pests.
