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Pests cause significant damage to fruit trees every year. Apple trees are no exception to the general trend. The apple blossom beetle (weevil) is especially dangerous for them.
Why is the flower beetle dangerous?
The apple blossom beetle (Coleoptera order) is a rather small brown insect with a long, slightly curved trunk and antennae. An adult is 4 mm in size. On the elytra of the pest there are 2 characteristic stripes by which the beetle can be accurately identified. Due to the presence of wings, the flower beetle is very mobile and quickly spreads through the apple orchard. As a result, getting rid of it is not as easy as it might seem at first glance.
From the name of the insect, it can be understood that it feeds on the flowers of apple trees, thereby preventing the ovary of fruits.
When the air temperature rises to +5 C, the pest climbs the trees and waits for flowering to begin. Before that, he hides in rotten leaves or folds of tree bark (he also prefers to winter there). In the kidneys, the beetle makes small depressions, from which juice begins to stand out. The flower beetle uses these recesses for laying eggs. The larva, which is hatched inside the flower, begins to quite actively eat it from the inside, thereby provoking the withering of the color and its drying out. The fruit in the place where the affected flower grew can no longer form. The inflorescence itself becomes brown and becomes sticky from the secretions of the larvae. The life of the larva lasts up to 11 days, after which the insect turns into a sexually mature individual, capable of further reproduction.
It is not difficult to identify the affected tree - it has buds that have not opened in a timely manner. The affected areas themselves have an unpleasant brown color and an unhealthy appearance.
You should not relax even when the apple tree has already faded. Weevils also eat the foliage of the plant with pleasure. After them, very characteristic openwork holes on the foliage remain.
Insect control methods
If a weevil is wound up on an apple tree, the question of how to deal with it becomes relevant for gardeners. Practice shows that control measures with apple blossom beetle should be sought immediately upon detection of the first signs of the presence of a pest. Unfortunately, it is hardly possible to do without chemicals in such a situation.
Apple blossom beetle
Depending on the stages of infestation of the apple orchard, different methods of control can be used with the flower beetle on the apple tree.
Insect collection
If the apple plantations are not too extensive, and the infection of trees is not yet widespread, an effective way to get rid of harmful beetles is to collect them by hand. The technology of the procedure is in many ways similar to the collection of the Colorado potato beetle. The best time to collect insects is early in the morning, when insects have not yet managed to get inside the flower buds. To collect parasites and their larvae, you should use a container (a bottle with a wide neck or a jar) with salted water poured into it.
Whitewashing of plants
Another way to prevent a tree from becoming infected with an apple blossom beetle and to combat it is to paint the tree trunk and branches with a solution of lime.Whitewashing will prevent insects from climbing the tree. But it should be understood that such processing will not have any effect on those pests that have already settled on the apple tree.
Chemical treatment
Despite the fact that such a popular method as whitewashing plants or manual collection of insects is widely used by gardeners, more effective help is chemical preparations. The apple tree should be sprayed against the weevil either when spring is already in full swing and the budding period begins, or in the fall, after the harvest is harvested.
When choosing a product, you should pay attention to such drugs as Funafon, Calypso, Kinsiks, Tanrex, etc. If a gardener, in addition to growing apple trees, is engaged in breeding bees, before buying a fungicide, he must make sure that the composition is completely safe for bees. Otherwise, apples at the end of the season will be in abundance, but you can forget about honey.
Prevention of damage by a flower beetle
So that there is no question with the appearance of such a pest as a flower beetle on an apple tree, how to deal with a pest, it is strongly recommended to pay special attention to preventive measures. Their timely use can eliminate the need to treat the apple orchard with aggressive drugs, which, although they save the flower from the pest, cannot be called harmless in any way.
One of the popular methods of preventing weevils from attacking trees is to apply a trapping rope. To make it, a tight rope is twisted from fabric, which is applied around the trunk of the apple tree. The matter is coated with a special sweet composition, the task of which is to attract insects. The beetle crawls onto the tourniquet and sticks. After that, it will remain to remove and destroy.
Before applying a layer of whitewash to the apple tree, it is recommended to remove the old bark from the plant as a preventive measure. The probability that weevils are hiding in it is quite high.
Removing the old bark
In the fall, after the fall of leaves, all the fallen leaves must be raked into one heap and burned, or, alternatively, sent to a compost pit. As already mentioned, flower beetles often choose fallen leaves as a place for wintering. After harvesting the foliage, the soil should be carefully dug up.
It is equally important to promptly cut off the buds affected by the pest, as well as the buds. This will prevent the flower beetle from increasing its population too quickly. As a result, fruit setting and development on the apple tree will occur without problems.
Chemicals can also be used as preventive measures. The easiest way to process plants is using a spray bottle. To do everything without mistakes, you should adhere to the following simple recommendations:
- spraying should be done in dry and exceptionally warm weather, so that precipitation does not prevent the used composition from getting on the problematic parts of the apple tree;
- since many drugs are extremely toxic, plants should be treated using personal protective equipment: closed clothing, a mask and gloves;
- plants that already have developing fruits cannot be treated with fungicides;
- a spray gun should be chosen with a rather long hose so that it is possible to process the tree completely, including its top;
- spray the compositions on apple trees from a distance of 80 centimeters;
- you need to spray not only the trunk, branches and foliage, but also the soil near the plant.
Long-term horticultural practice clearly demonstrates the fact that it is possible to protect an apple orchard from attack by harmful insects only using an integrated approach, which includes not only chemical, but also agrotechnical control. At the same time, one should not forget about prevention.
Another way to reduce the likelihood of crop loss due to beetle infestations is to opt for pest-resistant crops. Among them, such varietal crops as Linda, Talismane, Palitra, Feya, Rodnichok and some others stand out. By the way, they are resistant not to one insect, but also to a number of diseases.
So, by effectively combining the correct apple species with competent care, you can easily get an excellent harvest of tasty and healthy apples. The most important thing is to adhere to a systematic approach when working with culture.
