Sorrel housewives are used in cooking and preserving. This is a cold-resistant plant. Appears on the beds one of the first. In sorrel many vitamins, minerals and various acids.
Despite the fact that sorrel is an acidic plant, it is too interested in pests. Often on the plant you can see green small bugs, they devour young leaves, gnaw holes.
Gardeners do not always know what to do with bugs that eat sorrel, than to treat the beds, what means you can water the leaves to get rid of the leaf beetle.
What are these bugs that eat the plant, as they look in the photo?
Young sorrel leaves like to feast on sorrel leaf beetle. It is easy to recognize. A brilliant bug of a greenish or bluish tint, ranging in size from 4 to 6 mm. It belongs to the chrysomelin family. In the sexually mature female, the abdomen is strongly swollen. Because of this, she moves rarely and slowly. The wings during this period cover only partially in the abdomen.
Overwinter pest in the ground. At the end of May, bugs begin to mate and lay eggs of yellowish or orange tones. Larvae of leaf beetles are dirty yellow in color. They intensively eat leaf parenchyma. Only the upper leaf peel remains intact. Along the way, sated, the larvae pupate in the soil and after a week on the sorrel you can already see young bugs.
In the middle zone of Russia, two generations of pests appear per season, while there are several of them in the south. Pests can also be found in Central Asia, the United States, the Caucasus, Turkey and Korea.
Next photo you can see what the green beetle looks like.
Causes of leaf beetle
Sorrel is one of those few crops that are well protected from pests due to the presence of acids in the roots and leaves. However, among insects there are lovers of this plant. Bugs appear in any weather, they love the young leaves of sorrel, and as a result of their invasion, the crop loses an attractive appearance or is unsuitable for eating.
The appearance of parasites is evidenced by the appearance of holes in the leaves, discoloration, drying and cessation of growth.
What harm does it do and is it possible to eat such foliage for food?
The leaf beetle causes considerable damage to the crop. He gnaws holes in the foliage, while eating pieces of cloth.
If pest control is not carried out, the sorrel crop will be lost. After the appearance of insects, greens are preferably treated with folk or chemical means. If the treatment was carried out with special chemicals, there is no such sorrel.
How to get rid of sorrel bugs?
It is necessary to carry out the fight against oxalic bugs. But it is complicated by the fact that the plants are consumed almost entirely. Therefore, it is undesirable to use chemical preparations for processing.
Assemble manually
If the sorrel has grown a little, you can collect bugs by hand. Adult individuals 3-4 mm long are very noticeable. Collect them in a strong solution of salt or in a solarium. The yellow eggs laid by the female on the reverse side of the leaf are also laid there.
Traditional methods without chemistry: how and what to process a plant?
You can get rid of the pest by folk methods. There are several:
- Processing of growing crops with a mixture of tobacco dust and ash mixed in a 1: 1 ratio.
- Dusting leaves burning ground pepper.
- Use of herbal infusion. Grate 0.5 kg of garlic arrows and pour over three liters of water. The solution is kept for three days. Then dilute it in 10 liters of water.
- Infusion of tobacco leaves.
- Digging of beds and aisle.
- Covering a spandbond plant. Thanks to this, the sorrel leaf beetle will not be able to reach the delicacy and an early good harvest will be obtained.
- Sprinkle with garlic solution and laundry soap.
You can mow amazed sorrel, and burn the tops. Carefully water the beds and feed them, and then sprinkle with ashes. Sorrel grows well and gives a rich harvest of clean foliage.
Can I fight with chemicals and how to spray?
As for different chemical preparations, it is undesirable to use them on sorrel. If there are too many bugs in the plot, a culture can be treated with such preparations as Bitoxibacillin or Fitoverm.
Also gardeners get Agrovertin, Spark bio. But you can spray the culture for two weeks before the collection of leaves. So, bitoksibatsillin can be purchased from 30 rubles for a bag. And for a bag of "Fitoverma" will have to pay 20 rubles. Whereas 5 ml costs 20 rubles, and 50 ml costs 199 rubles.
Fitoverm is practically harmless to humans. It takes two days to dissolve the drug in fruit and culture. They can be eaten after two days. He almost instantly paralyzes the bugs. Insects stop moving, feeding and breeding.
How to apply Fitoverm:
- Water-soluble concentrate is diluted in water and adjusted to the required volume by dilution in water.
- Garden plants are treated at the rate of 2-10 ml of the drug in 1-4 liters of water. But more about how to dilute the drug for a particular culture, you need to read the instructions.
- Treatment with the solution should be carried out early in the morning or late in the evening in dry, windless weather.
How to prevent pests?
Sorrel is recommended to grow in one place for no more than three years. Due to this, the plant will not be affected by parasites and hurt. If we dispose of it in time and clean up plant residues, this will significantly reduce the chances of pests. But do not save the owners from the fight against insects, if they are already in the garden.- Leaf beetles can be prevented by planting aromatic herbs such as chamomile, coriander, basil or calendula. For each bug there are special means, the effectiveness of which is tested by time.
- Well helps in the fight against leaf beetles pyrethrum tincture. She sprayed plants several times during the summer.
- In addition, it is possible to sow sorrel to the other end of the plot, where any crops from the buckwheat family (sorrel, rhubarb and others) were not grown before.
Sorrel is recommended to grow in one place for no more than three years. Due to this, the plant will not be affected by parasites and hurt. If we dispose of it in time and clean up plant residues, this will significantly reduce the chances of pests. But do not save the owners from the fight against insects, if they are already in the garden.If timely take measures to combat leaf beetle, sorrel will delight the owners of a rich harvest.
