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The homeland of potatoes is South America. This vegetable came to Russia through the efforts of Peter I, and now I can’t even believe that at first potatoes did not cause much delight among the population. Currently, potatoes are one of the main food products; they are used boiled, fried, and baked. You can make mashed potatoes and stews from potatoes, fry them with mushrooms and sour cream. Potatoes are used in many salads, are the main ingredient in soups, and rare picnics are complete without potatoes baked in coals.
Potatoes are sold in any supermarket, but no one will argue that potatoes grown on your own plot are much tastier than those imported from Egypt, Israel or Pakistan.
Growing potatoes on a personal plot
Are you planning to grow potatoes yourself? There is nothing simpler: we buy or take from a neighbor tubers for planting, plant, fertilize, hill, collect Colorado potato beetles, eagerly awaiting the harvest. In the fall we dig up lovingly grown potatoes, but what are they? Instead of smooth and beautiful tubers, we see potatoes that look like someone worked on them with a hole punch.
When cut, the vegetable is riddled with thin and frequent passages; it is easier to throw it away than to try to remove the affected areas and find suitable ones for food. Wireworms and click beetle larvae caused such damage to the potato crop. In the amazed pest potatoes become infected, and at least 70% of the crop becomes unfit for food. Potatoes affected by wireworms are poorly stored; they rot in damaged areas. The difficulty of controlling wireworms is due to its underground habitat. It is difficult to predict in advance how much the soil is infected with the pest.
Potato pest - wireworm
The insect itself owes its name to the characteristic sound that the beetle makes when it tries to roll over from its back to its paws. And the larva is called a wireworm because of its thin body and durable cover. The larva looks like a piece of wire, so it is almost impossible to crush the wireworm, but it can be torn, but it is useless to fight the wireworm in the garden. Some information about the pest itself will tell you how to deal with it. The wireworm is well mobile vertically; depending on soil moisture, it can move up and down in the ground to a depth of two meters. The horizontal mobility of the wireworm is much less, only a couple of tens of centimeters. These features should be taken into account when fighting the pest.
Insect development cycle
Is five years. In the spring, each female beetle lays more than a hundred eggs, placing them under plant debris and earthen lumps. In the first year of development, the larva does not harm cultivated plants. From the second year until it becomes an adult insect, the larva, which looks like a 2-3 centimeter yellow-brown worm, is a dangerous pest, causing enormous damage to agriculture. The wireworm eats seeds, plant roots and stems. This article will tell you how to deal with wireworms effectively.
Chemical methods of pest destruction
Wireworms, like any garden pest, are afraid of modern chemicals. “Bazudin”, “Prestige” and similar substances destroy the pest and prevent its reappearance. Such preparations are poured into the hole before planting the tubers, and completely decompose no earlier than two months later, and only after this period do they become harmless to humans. This method is not suitable for those who like to eat young potatoes of early varieties.
The advantages of folk methods of struggle
An increasing number of gardeners are trying to manage their plots without strong chemicals, turning to organic farming. Fighting wireworms with folk remedies involves using means that are safe for human health. Proper agricultural technology, the use of baits, plant infusions, will allow you to safely deal with wireworms in the garden.Don’t be afraid to spend your time and energy on destroying the wireworm; the reward will be a good potato harvest.
Agrotechnical methods
First of all, keep your area clean. Weed the beds regularly, especially carefully removing wheatgrass. Destroy not only the above-ground part of the weed, but also the roots of wheatgrass, since this is the main delicacy of the wireworm. Do not leave removed weeds in the beds; insects find refuge under them. Take plant debris outside your garden or dispose of it in compost pits. How to get rid of wireworms using agrotechnical methods:
- Follow crop rotation: good predecessors for potatoes are cabbage, legumes, cucumbers, and pumpkin crops. Potatoes should not be planted in a place where tomatoes and other plants of the nightshade family were previously grown. With proper crop rotation we fight wireworms at all stages of its development. Use legume green manures, such as alfalfa, vetch mixed with oats, sweet clover, and annual lupine. These plants not only help expel wireworms, but also enrich the soil with microelements and promote its aeration.
- Do a deep autumn digging of the soil, the click beetle larvae will become accessible to birds, and when frosts occur they will die from low temperatures. During the summer, regularly loosen the potato beds; the eggs of the click beetle will be exposed to the sun, their development will stop, and the larvae will no longer hatch from them.
- After harvesting the potatoes and storing the crop, select small tubers from the soil, thereby reducing the supply of nutrients for the wireworm.
- In spring, dig the soil shallowly. If you notice a wireworm, remove it from the ground manually.
- The wireworm prefers moist, acidic soils, so liming the area intended for growing potatoes. Dolomite flour is added during digging once every 3-4 years. Ash can be sprinkled between the rows of potato beds; crushed eggshells are a good remedy.
- For neutral or slightly alkaline soil, half a liter of a weak solution of potassium permanganate (5 grams of potassium permanganate per 10 liters of water) can be poured into the planting hole when planting potatoes. In acidic soil, this solution can burn the roots, so instead of using potassium permanganate, place pine needles or onion peels in the hole.
- You can soak the tubers in a decoction of onion peels before planting. This method not only repels wireworms, but also serves as a preventive measure. potato diseases.
- A handful of mustard powder poured into the planting hole will also repel the wireworm. You can add a pinch of hot pepper to the mustard powder.
- Preparations containing ammonia have a dual effect: ammonia water and ammonium sulfate. Regular use of these products is a good fertilizer for potatoes and serves as an effective means of destroying wireworms.
- Adding beans or peas to the planting hole is good protection against wireworms. A mixture of vegetable oil and eggshells in the planting hole will cause the death of the click beetle larva.
- Planting marigolds, beans, peas, soybeans or black beans in rows of potatoes will also repel wireworms.
- If you plan to grow potatoes on a previously unused plot of land, after plowing it, do not plant potatoes, but grow legumes and green manure there for the first couple of years.
- A good assistant in the fight against wireworms is the predatory nematode nemabact, which is contained in the “Protection” soil. A handful of soil added to a hole when planting potatoes contains a sufficient number of microscopic worms that will destroy the wireworm without causing harm to either plants or people.
Baits for fighting wireworms
Folk remedies for wireworms include mechanical methods, namely laying out bait. The method requires some time and labor, but is very effective.
- Wireworms love to feed on lettuce roots; plant this crop between rows of potatoes, thereby sacrificing lettuce, but saving potato plantings.
- The bait can be wheat, corn, oats or barley seeds. Sow them in small areas. After a few weeks, dig up the seedlings; the wireworms will be inside them. This way, you can get rid of a large number of larvae, after which you can plant potatoes.
- In addition to cereals, you can use root vegetables as bait: bury pieces of carrots, beets or potatoes in the soil, and dig them up a few days later. Pests will gather near the bait, collect and destroy it.
- Dig empty cans into the ground, previously pierced with a nail in several places. Place mashed potato leaves at the bottom of the jar. Check the traps periodically; both wireworms and adults gather in them. To make it easier to remove the bait from the ground, it can be strung on a wire or strong fishing line. By pulling the line, you can remove the bait with the caught wireworm.
- To kill adult click beetles, make a “nest” of damp straw or grass for them.The females will gather there to lay eggs, after which these “nests” are collected and burned, the number of wireworms will decrease.
- You can lure adult beetles with sweet bait. Spread a film between the rows of potatoes and apply some sweet syrup on it. Many insects will flock to this trap, including adult click beetles. Destroy them as they appear on film. The more adults you can catch, the less wireworm there will be in the soil in subsequent years.
Using herbal tinctures
A good folk remedy for eliminating wireworms in the garden are infusions of some herbs. You can treat the planting hole with this product before planting potatoes, or water the potato bushes during the growing season. Wireworms cannot tolerate infusions of some herbs. You can use nettle at the rate of 500 grams per 10 liters of water, dandelion at the rate of 200 grams of raw materials per 10 liters, coltsfoot (200 g per 10 liters), or celandine at the rate of 100 g per 10 liters of water. Celandine should be infused for three days, and all other herbs for 12 hours.
Ten liters of herbal infusion will be enough for about two dozen potato planting holes. Repeat the treatment with herbal infusions after about 7-10 days two or three times.
Let's sum it up
As you can see, there are a lot of methods to combat wireworms. Yes, it may be easier to flood the entire area with harsh chemicals and destroy not only the wireworm on it, but, in general, everything living and useful.Traditional methods of getting rid of wireworms require time and effort, they are more troublesome than chemical methods of dealing with wireworms, but traditional methods are safe, they do not harm the environment, do not disturb the ecological balance, and are not dangerous for domestic animals and humans. Combine several methods of harmlessly exterminating wireworms; an integrated approach is always more effective. Using non-chemical methods of getting rid of wireworms, you will get a tasty and healthy potato harvest.
