If when digging the soil in the area you found a wireworm, then the first reaction: you must begin the fight. This is a big nuisance! In order for the struggle with the wireworm to be effective, in order to remove it from its site once and for all, one must have an idea of its biology. How to deal with wireworm? How to remove wireworm from the garden? Outwardly, it resembles a worm, but in fact it is the larva of a nutcracker. The name "wireworm" larvae (worms) received for hard chitinous integuments that really resemble pieces of wire.
In the world fauna, there are up to 10,000 species from the family of beetles-nutcrackers. Giant representatives of these beetles up to 8 cm long are found in the tropics. One of the species of nutcracker of South American origin is able to glow. Aborigines, putting several of these bugs in a jar, can do without electric lighting.
Who are the Nutcracker Beetles and How Their Larvae Look
Our nutcracker beetles are much more modest both in size and in species diversity. There are about 20 species. All beetles are painted in brown and black. Cultivated plant species are most harmed by the plant nutcracker.
In nature, nutcracker beetles appear in spring, along with the first plants that began to develop after the winter dormancy period, somewhere in the middle-end of May. At this time, the nutcracker beetles actively eat, nibbling the edges of the leaves and flower petals, mating. After mating, the females lay small heaps of eggs in the soil. After 3-4 weeks, larvae appear from the eggs - the same wireworms that initially feed on the small roots of plants. Before becoming adult bugs, larvae live, develop 3-4 years. During this time, they shed 14 times, dropping the old, chitinous shell, which became cramped, reaching a length of about 35 mm.
Throughout life, wireworms migrate in the soil in search of suitable temperature and nutrition. At the same time, they cause significant damage to the underground parts of plants - roots, tubers, rhizomes, bulbs. They can even eat seeds if there is no other food. On cultivated soils, wireworms harm so much that gardeners and gardeners sometimes abandon their plots, unable to get rid of the pest.
Potatoes and carrots are most affected by it. Potato damage is especially significant. When harvesting from infected areas, you can see a lot of damaged tubers, and the larvae sit in them, protruding half out. I had to meet tubers with five, and even with eight wireworms at the same time. Such a potato emanated by a pest can be sent for storage, but the hostess then gets tortured to clean it. But the damaged carrots should not be stored, it will not lie for two months. Therefore, the issue of combating wireworms is very relevant for many gardeners.
How to remove wireworm from a potato field? Oddly enough, the wireworm's favorite "dish" is the rhizomes of wheatgrass and other cereals, so when digging a site, weeding, you deprive the pest of its natural food. He gladly switches to potatoes and other cultivated plants. In addition, leaving decorative turfs and untreated patches of soil on the site, you create conditions for the reservation of the pest, from where it will again spread through plantings.
Effective ways to deal with wireworms
Measures to combat wireworms are very complex, but you can remove it from the site. How to get rid of wireworm in the garden forever?
The first, easiest way is to manually select it while digging the soil. This significantly reduces the degree of damage to cultivated plants this year. In general, any cultivation of the soil reduces the number of wireworms and helps you get rid of it.
The second method is more effective. It is based on the fact that after digging the soil before sowing or planting, wireworms are deprived of food - this should be used. Lay out the bait area, digging them to a depth of 5-10 cm. As a bait, take sliced potatoes, zucchini or carrots. On 1 square meter, place 3-5 pieces of food for the pest. After 5-7 days, dig out the bait, destroy the larvae collected on it. If the area is very clogged, repeat the reception.
Preventive methods of controlling wireworm are also effective:
- firstly, weed control, especially with wheat grass creeping;
- secondly, treatment with one percent urea solution of compost heaps, since they are the second place after wheatgrass feeding place for wireworms. This will accelerate the processes of overripening of plant residues, depriving it of a nutrient medium.
In two or three years, performing the above work, you can significantly reduce the number of pests in your area.
What does the wireworm love? And what does he not like?
If you have a wirewound in your area, then in the soil you will find an insect at all stages of development - large, small larvae, pupae, and nutcracker beetles.
Digging the soil will help, of course, but it is ineffective on heavily contaminated lands.
I offer a set of measures to combat wireworm, personally verified:
- Two to three days before planting, plant slices of raw potatoes, carrots or beets on sticks 20 cm long. Bury them on your site to a depth of 1-2 cm, leaving the ends of the sticks sticking out above the ground. On the day the bait is planted, remove it from the ground, collect wireworms from them, and bury it again. Repeat the event all summer.
- Take glass 0.25-0.5-liter jars (10 pieces per 1 hundred parts), put on the bottom slices of raw potatoes, carrots or beets, dig a neck in the shade. Adult insects - nutcracker beetles fall into such traps. Choose them every 2-3 days, changing the bait if necessary.
- In the autumn, spread over a section of a pile of straw or manure. When frosts come, collect the heaps, burn them together with the insects gathered inside.
- Include legumes in the fruit-transfer (crop rotation) - the wireworm does not tolerate them, so it will leave the site.
- In a pinch, chemicals such as bazudine can be used. But strictly follow the instructions for their use.
Watch the video. You will see a simple method of dealing with wireworms. Rather, this method is aimed at combating the nutcracker. By reducing the number of nutcracker beetles in this way, you will not allow them to lay eggs in the soil. So the wireworm will disappear from the potato field:
This is a very difficult and difficult task - the fight against the wireworm. Please write in the comments what measures, ways, means helped you cope with this task. Negative experience is also important and interesting to gardeners.