WIRE CUTTER - PHOTO, DESCRIPTION AND RELIABLE MEANS OF FIGHT

Today there is no site free from wireworms. These small larvae - unworthy offspring of cute click beetles - annoy plants from under the ground and do not complain about their appetite. To protect the harvest, lethal shish kebab is used.

Not only.

WIREBOX IN SOIL LIKE FISH IN WATER

The family of click beetles, of which about 50 species are considered pests, thrives almost everywhere except Antarctica. Beetles are found even in the mountains at an altitude of 5000 m. In the middle lane, the most dangerous are dark and striped, in the steppe and forest-steppe zones - wide, sowing and steppe, and in Siberia - Siberian.

Which of the summer residents does not know the funny acrobatic feature of adult clickers: turned over on their backs, they usually arch sharply, making a characteristic click, jump, roll over in the air and stand up. Click beetles feed on flowering vegetation and do not cause any significant harm. But their larvae, or wireworms, are not at all funny - dense, thin, yellowish-brown worms. It is they who harm the plants, eating for 3-4 years.

These living "wires" are saturated with sown seeds, seedlings, young stems and roots of plants. The contents are eaten away from the seeds, leaving a thin shell, deep round holes are gnawed out on the seedlings, long passages in carrots and potatoes, where pathogens that cause decay then penetrate.

Both winter in the ground: in the spring, the larvae continue to feed in the soil, and the beetles emerge into the light in April. They fly and lay their eggs in cracks in the ground from May to early July. Each female - up to 250 pieces. The only generation develops 3-4 years. Young larvae do not cause significant damage to plants. The greatest damage from large wireworms is larvae of older ages. Some species of beetles do not hide, while others hide most of the time under lumps of soil, lower leaves of weeds or plant debris.

The main reservations of wireworms are areas with dense grassy vegetation, especially couch grass and other grasses (clover, alfalfa), as well as peat-marshy soils.

Wireworms are active in the ground, almost like fish in water. By the way, it is in the wet, in the dry that they either die or sink into the depth, sometimes by 1 m or more. After watering or rain, they return to the surface layer - 10-15 cm. Well, in general, precipitation contributes to an increase in the number of wireworms.

Harmfulness increases in years with a cool spring, when seeds germinate slowly, and in dry years it significantly decreases, since wireworms stay at a depth.

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Reference by topic: Wireworm - how to deal with this beetle + a mountain of comments

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MEANS AGAINST THE WIRE PEST

What weapon will help us in the ongoing struggle against the insidious enemy?

Natural enemies of click beetles are ground beetles, more than 200 species of birds, as well as moles, shrews, hedgehogs, toads and lizards.

AGRICULTURE.

As a preventive measure, weeds are weeded, especially couch grass, which is especially beloved by wireworms, and acidic soils are limed.

Early sowing of seeds at the optimal depth helps in part, due to which seedlings develop quickly - before overwintered larvae appear in the upper soil layer: during this time, plants have time to gain strength and better resist wireworms.

For example, a beet attacked at 6-8 leaves will not die, although the root crop may subsequently suffer. But if the larva eats its roots in the phase of cotyledons or the first pair of true leaves, the beets will not survive.

In the beds where there is no escape from the wireworm, it is worth growing peas and other legumes, as well as mustard. Yellow worms do not have much respect for these plants.

TRAPS FROM THE WIRE.

In small areas in the spring, before planting-sowing or at any other time when the soil is wet, pieces of potatoes or beets are placed at a depth of 5-15 cm in rows with a distance of 1 m, marking with twigs or stringing these baits every 10-15 cm on a wire and bury, bending one end so that it sticks out of the ground.

If seedlings have already appeared, such a "kebab" is buried between the rows. Every 4-5 days they take it out, check and destroy the caught larvae, and use the bait again.

Germinating seeds of barley, oats, wheat, corn serve as a good trap. They are sown to vegetables and potatoes in beds or between rows, then a week later they are pulled out and destroyed by wireworms.

The method of disorientation also works, when the traps are buried away from the beds, at a distance of 2 m or more.

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Reference by topic: Do-it-yourself beer traps from a wireworm

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PRODUCTS-INSECTICIDES FROM THE WIREWOOD.

The most effective method of protection, especially with a high number of wireworms (more than 10-15 larvae per 1 sq. M), is insecticides. They are introduced into the soil during sowing and planting or treated with tubers and seeds.

The most benign for the environment are biological products, for example, based on the metarhizium fungus, which infects the nutcracker larvae, causing them toxemia, damage to various organs, which subsequently leads to their death. Dead wireworms become green, covered with spores of the fungus. Preparations based on metarizium are applied to the soil when planting at the rate of 100 ml / 100 sq. m, the flow rate of the working fluid is 2 liters per hundred square meters.

Well, especially strong ones are chemical insecticides with the active substance diazinon, which is already half a century old, but it still has not lost its relevance. It is a nerve poison that causes severe convulsions and death in insects. On potatoes, such preparations are applied to the soil during planting. To protect seedlings and seedlings of vegetables, you can make a "deadly" cocktail for wireworms - an insecticidal-earthen mixture, into which plant roots are dipped before planting in the ground. Insecticides containing imidacloprid are also effective. This active substance also disrupts the process of nerve impulse transmission in insects and causes their rapid death.

It is necessary to strictly observe the regulations for the use of drugs indicated on the package. The waiting period is especially important - the time from applying the drug to harvesting: it can reach 60 days. When working with insecticides, personal protective equipment must be used.

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Reference by topic: Processing potatoes with wireworm tar - my reviews

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HOW TO BRING OUT A WIRE - TIPS ON VIDEO

© Author: I. MITYUSHEV, Candidate of Biological Sciences, Associate Professor, Department of Plant Protection, RGAU-MSHA

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