Colorado potato beetle: fighting it with folk remedies

Content

1 The effectiveness of chemical methods of combating the Colorado potato beetle
2 Tactical and technical characteristics of the Colorado potato beetle and the fight against it with folk remedies
3 How to fight the Colorado potato beetle with folk remedies
4 Conclusion

A representative of the American genus of leaf-cutter beetles, containing more than 40 species, the Colorado potato beetle, after penetrating the Eurasian continent, became a real scourge of agriculture. The beetle, which feeds on plants of the nightshade family, harms not only potatoes, but also peppers, eggplants and tomatoes. Moreover, all these plants are his “native” food.

It’s good that, having made the decision to emigrate, the Colorado potato beetle did not take with it any relatives who remained to vegetate in their homeland. The Colorado emigrant tried to enter Europe illegally several times, but he was caught and destroyed. Only in 1918, when during the war people had no time for insects, Colorado managed to take a bridgehead in Bordeaux and gain a foothold there.After which the Colorado potato beetle began its victorious march across Europe.

The story of Colorado's penetration into the territory of the USSR is worthy of spy novels. There are reasonable assumptions by contemporaries of this event that biological sabotage took place. At least, the Colorado invader penetrated into Poland and the Baltic states in the 50s not chaotically, but in patches. In the same way, Colorado was found in outbreaks along roads in 1980 in the Komi Republic. Be that as it may, today the Colorado potato beetle has occupied the entire territory of Eurasia, located at the same latitude as the United States.

Breeders are trying to develop all new varieties of nightshade plants that are resistant to viral and fungal diseases. They succeed. The only thing they can’t do is develop plant varieties that are resistant to insect pests and mollusks.

The effectiveness of chemical methods of combating the Colorado potato beetle

If poisons have already been developed for shellfish, then with the Colorado potato beetle it seems that chemistry does not work on it. Actually this is not true. The Colorado potato beetle is killed by insecticides just like any other insect. But the Colorado has ways of surviving such aggressive extermination of its population. The methods are so effective that fighting Colorado with chemicals is useless.

The fact is that chemicals act on one stage of insect development. Typically, pests have development cycles confined to certain months, during which it is possible to poison insects in the stage of either imago, pupae, or adult individuals that have not yet had time to lay eggs. The Colorado potato beetle does not have this. On the same bush there can be adults, larvae of different ages and eggs.

The American pest is perhaps the only one with whom folk remedies are most effective from the Colorado potato beetle.

Although, given the number of these methods and the principle “if there are many medicines for a disease, then it is incurable,” one can guess that folk remedies for combating Colorado are also not much more effective than chemical ones. But at least they are harmless to people.

Tactical and technical characteristics of the Colorado potato beetle and the fight against it with folk remedies

Before you begin to fight this brightly colored insect, it is necessary to find out the reasons for its survivability.

Why is it difficult to remove the Colorado potato beetle from the site:

primarily due to the fact that the Colorado potato is a guest from America and on the Eurasian continent it has practically no natural enemies;

over the summer, a female Colorado is capable of laying up to 1000 eggs;
the beetle is capable of hibernating in unfavorable conditions for up to three years;
the insect overwinters deep in the soil, being inaccessible to insecticides;
Colorados are capable of flying tens of kilometers;
It is not possible to exterminate the beetle simultaneously throughout the entire territory of Eurasia.

If a female Colorado mate mated in the fall, then in the spring, emerging from hibernation, she lays eggs without additional fertilization. Just one female is enough to infect a garden.

Thanks to his abilities, the illegal Colorado migrant achieved recognition and even monuments from people.

How to fight the Colorado potato beetle with folk remedies

The best method is considered to be hand collection of Colorado pests and their larvae from plants. Having collected the colorados from the plants, they must be burned or drowned.

Important! Do not crush Colorado pests and their larvae directly on plant leaves.

This leaves the pests a chance to survive and burns the plant leaves.

What if it is not possible to come to the dacha every day or the planting area is too large? The number of beetles can be reduced by their natural enemies, which, although few in Eurasia, exist.

Attention! There is no need to classify all insects in the garden as pests and try to destroy them, no matter how creepy they may look. Many of them are very useful.

Natural enemies of the Colorado potato beetle

Ground beetles

The beetle larvae are eaten by ground beetles, of which there are quite a few species and all of them are predators that hunt pests. One of them is the garden ground beetle.

If you find such a beetle in the garden beds, you should not destroy it immediately. This is man's ally. There are many benefits, but no harm. The exception is the bread ground beetle, which is unlikely to cause harm to pepper or other crops. She eats cereals.

Mantis

Many are afraid of this insect and try to kill it. No need. The praying mantis preys on adult Colorado potato beetles and other garden pests. Therefore, it is better to welcome the appearance of these predators on cultivated plants.

Perillus

If suddenly, near a clutch of Colorado potato beetle eggs, you find this picture:

Do not rush to destroy the insect immediately. This is not a pest. This is a natural enemy of the Colorado pest, specially imported from America: the predatory perillus bug. Bedbug larvae cope with eggs and beetle larvae, and an adult can easily dine on the Colorado potato itself.

True, perillus can only be found in the Krasnodar region, where they tried to acclimatize it. Without much success.

In the photo, however, the victim is a close relative of the Colorado potato beetle, differing from it only in the color of the elytra. But perillus doesn’t care who it is.

Lacewing

Initially, this predatory insect fed on aphids, so in any case, its benefits in the garden are undoubted. But lately the lacewing has also tasted Colorado potato beetle larvae.

Guinea fowl

It is believed that the beetle can be eaten by guinea fowl. According to a Nizhny Novgorod gardener who decided to test this statement in practice, they forgot to inform the guinea fowl about their food preferences. They may need to be trained to eat Colorado pests, similar to turkeys. Guinea fowls, in general, are very careful about unusual food and look closely at it for a long time. If they are familiar with striped snails as food, things may go faster.

[get_colorado]

But there is another nuance here. Even if chickens can effectively clear your garden of the Colorado pest, they will no less effectively clear it of your entire crop of peppers, tomatoes, berries and other things, along with the plants. But the beetle definitely won’t. Unfortunately, these birds do more harm than help.

Plants that repel beetles

The Colorado aggressor really doesn’t like the smell of some European plants, and you can take advantage of this by planting the following flowers between the pepper bushes:

marigold

calendula

coriander

They will not only expel the Colorado pest, but also provide the owner with spices or medicine such plants as:

nasturtium

borago (borage)

night violet

The same double benefit can be obtained by planting onions, horseradish or legumes between the rows of nightshade plants.

This is probably where the natural enemies of the Colorado potato beetle end.

It remains to figure out how to get rid of the Colorado potato beetle using folk remedies without attracting predatory insects to the garden (if they are present, it will be impossible to poison any other pests besides the Colorado potato beetle) or planting repellent plants.

Ways to combat the Colorado potato beetle with improvised means

Methods of combating the Colorado pest are divided into:

dry dusting;
spraying;
mechanical methods.

To dust plants, various fine powders are used, including gypsum and cement:

sifted ash. Birch ash is considered the most effective. They say that a single dusting of the plant at the rate of 10 kg of ash per hundred square meters is sufficient. The colorados and larvae die after 2 days. But you need to dust the plants every 2 weeks before the potatoes bloom and once a month after flowering;
corn flour. The hope is that, having eaten flour particles along with plant leaves, the Colorado pest will die as a result of the swelling of the flour particles in its stomach. It is unlikely that the method is effective, since plants are dusted on wet leaves and the flour will swell before it hits the beetle;
cement or gypsum. Summer residents who practice this method claim that the Colorados are dying. Does the cementitious substance block the intestines?

Important! All types of plant dusting are carried out early in the morning after dew. The exception is dusting immediately after rain. Light wind is desirable.

This is where the methods of killing beetles using the dry method end. The range of folk remedies for spraying is much wider.

Recipes for infusions to combat colorado on plants

There are so many recipes for infusions for spraying plants that the question inevitably arises of how effective they are.In addition, many infusions kill not only pests, but also helpers. Almost all recipes for infusions require 10 liters of water, so by default we assume that 10 liters of water is needed unless a different amount is specified.

To make infusions use:

tar solution. Dilute 100 g of tar with water, apply three times a week;
sunflower. Leave 500 g of flowers for 3 days;
elecampane. 100 g of herb is poured with boiling water and left for 2 hours. Spray 3 times during the growing season. The first time after the plants reach 15 cm in height;
Walnut. Pour boiling water over 300 g of shells and dry leaves or a kilogram of fresh leaves. Infuse for a week. Strain before spraying;
poplar leaves. Pour half a bucket of leaves with water and boil for a quarter of an hour. Add water to full volume and leave for another 3 days;
white acacia bark. Leave a kilogram of crushed bark for 3 days, strain before spraying;
celandine. Boil a bucket of plants filled with water for a quarter of an hour. The extract is diluted with water at the rate of half a liter of extract per 10 liters of water.
onion peel. Place 300 g under pressure, add water at a temperature of 80°C, leave for 24 hours;
wormwood with wood ash. 300 g of bitter wormwood are mixed with a glass of ash, add hot water, leave for 3 hours;
dandelion with horsetail. Boil 400 g of the mixture. Take 200 g of each plant. After cooling, dilute in the proportion of 0.5 liters of infusion per 10 liters of water;
hot pepper. 200 g of dried raw materials are boiled for two hours. After cooling, add 40 g of laundry soap to the broth;
garlic. 0.2 kg of chopped garlic is infused for 24 hours. Before use, add 40 g of laundry soap;
hemp. Boil 300 g of hemp flowers for 10 minutes in 5 liters of water.While the infusion is cooling, give tea to representatives of the State Drug Control Service and a platoon of riot police. After cooling, add 20 g of soap;
tomato tops. Not a very promising method, since the Colorado pest also eats tomato plants. But they are the last to sit on them, so they can be used to scare Colorado potato plants away from potato plants. Two options: a kilogram of finely chopped tomato plants is infused for 5 hours in warm water, or 3 kg of finely chopped tomato plants are boiled for half an hour in 10 liters of water. Before use, add 5 liters of water to 1 liter of solution. To both options add 40 g of soap; yellow mustard. Boil 2 kg of dry plants. Before use, add 30 g of soap;
tobacco. Half a kilogram of stems, dust or roots of the plant is infused for 2 days. Add 2 more parts of water to the infusion and add 40 g of laundry soap;
nitrogen fertilizer. 100 g diluted with water. Spray the plants with the solution;
soda + yeast. Take 300 g of baking soda and yeast, stir in water. Spray the plants with the resulting suspension 2 times a week.

Important! Plants are sprayed in the evening, choosing calm weather. Wet foliage is not treated.

All infusions and decoctions are used only in freshly prepared form. Soap does not affect the well-being of the Colorado plant, but it promotes the adhesion of solutions to the foliage of plants.

We fight the beetle the old-fashioned way. The recipe for fighting Colorado is only revealed at the end of the video.

Mechanical methods of getting rid of beetles

Mulching with sawdust

A good way to repel the Colorado potato beetle is to mulch the soil between planting nightshade plants with fresh pine or birch sawdust. This method can also achieve several goals at once:

when mulching with sawdust, plants will not grow under bushes weeds;
the Colorado pest will fly around beds with nightshade plants, as it does not like the smell of fresh wood;
As it rots, fertilizer will form.

Onion peels can be used not only for decoctions, but also in dry form. If, during the process of planting nightshade plants, you put a handful of onion peels into the hole, then the plantings will get rid of the Colorado potato beetle. True, the method works in the Nizhny Novgorod region. An experiment conducted in the Donetsk region showed that either “Colorado thermonuclear plants” or little husk was placed under the plants.

Trap in the form of a jar

A jar made of any material is suitable for traps, as long as it is deep enough. The edges of the future trap are smeared with potato juice, and several pieces of potato tuber are placed on the bottom. The jar is buried so that the edges are at ground level. Density of cans: 1 can per 5 m² of planted plants. Once it gets into the jar, the Colorado pest can no longer get out.

Young potato plants

When the potato plants planted for harvest emerge and grow, several old potato tubers are buried between the rows. After the young plants appear, the Colorado pest will begin to move onto the tender young leaves, leaving the old, hardened plants alone. It is easier to collect Colorado potato beetles from several young plants than from an entire potato plantation.

Natural-chemical weapons against the Colorado potato beetle

Poison the Colorado potato beetle maybe the Colorado pest itself.To do this, you will have to collect a full half-liter jar of Colorado potato beetles and pour the pests into a 10-liter container of water (there seems to be something magical about this figure). Cover the container with water with a lid. After the Colorado pests drown and sink to the bottom, the solution is ready. Normally, the process of preparing a poisonous solution takes from 4 to 6 days. The solution will be ready only after all the beetles have drowned. You want the toxins from the bugs to dissolve in the water.

Add 2 more parts of water to the solution.

Important! Experienced gardeners recommend not using the solution in concentrated form “to be sure.” The venom of Colorado potato beetles can burn plant leaves.

Colorado beetle ash

Collect 200 pests from plants. Build a fire and wait until the wood burns down to red coals. In an iron container, fry the colorados until charcoal. Thoroughly grind the pest embers into fine dust. Dissolve the dust in a standard amount of water and spray the potato plant with the suspension.

Conclusion

Every gardener is trying to invent a new reliable remedy against the Colorado “biological weapon of mass destruction” of nightshade plants, but so far no one has found a panacea for the Colorado emigrant.

Considering the ability of the Colorado pest to fly and adapt to any chemical influences, gardeners will get rid of the Colorado occupier only when the governments of all countries agree on simultaneous spraying of insecticides on all areas affected by the Colorado pest. But as a result, all other insects living in these areas will be destroyed. Therefore, gardeners can only slightly restrain and control the growth of the Colorado potato beetle population.