While engaged in gardening on their plot of land, many gardeners sooner or later encounter plant pests. Among the enemies of garden plantings, a pest of a beetle-clicker wireworm and its larvae can meet.
The larva of the wireworm is a yellowish hard worm, having a length of not more than three centimeters. The insect is so nicknamed that when it bounces it makes a click. The beetle-beetle has a rather long life cycle: some species of the click can survive up to five years.
The greatest interest is shown in vegetable cultures (potatoes, beets, carrots, cucumbers), beans, grain crops, buckwheat.
There are a large number of types of wireworm, protection from which is laborious enough and takes a lot of time. However, it is necessary to struggle with them systematically. Otherwise, the growth of plants in your garden will be completely stopped.
Fighting the wireworm on potatoes and other garden crops
If your kitchen garden was visited by such an uninvited guest, then it is quite natural to ask how to deal with a wireworm. Most often it damages potatoes, it is one of the frequent diseases of potatoes . He is able to eat into tubers and roots, eat roots and stems of potatoes.
Unfortunately, there are no potato varieties resistant to wireworms. However, in your power to carry out a set of measures to prevent the appearance of wireworm on beds.
The fight against the wireworm in the garden includes the following actions:
- often loosen the soil between beds;
- timely remove weeds ;
- In autumn it is necessary to dig deep enough in the earth, in spring - smaller, while some surviving larvae are removed from the soil surface;
- periodically it is necessary to bring chalk, lime, ash to the beds;
- in the spring, ammonium sulfate, ammonium nitrate, ammonium chloride, ammonia water are added to the soil;
- it is possible to make trap-baits for beetles: to decompose old rags, straw or grass in beds where, in time, the wireworm will settle and it will have to be burned or crushed together with straw or rags;
- sow mustard: in the spring - a month before the planting of vegetables, in the autumn - immediately after harvesting;
- water the wells with a solution of potassium permanganate: ten grams of water is added with five grams of potassium permanganate, and no more than 500 grams of liquid is poured into the well;
- application of bait seeding: before planting potatoes on seed beds, oat, barley or corn seeds are treated with insecticides, dried and planted on the garden about three weeks before the expected planting of potatoes.
Also, special attention should be paid to special means of fighting wireworms. So, during the planting itself, the bottom of the furrow can be sprinkled with the insecticide "Aktara", and subsequently introduce into the soil a granulated drug "Bazudin" or one of its analogues (Zemlin, Grom-2, Kapkan, Pochin). In the evening, the surface of the ground beneath the plants should be sprayed with the biopreparation Entonem-F.
Folk remedies for wireworms
Some gardeners recommend that when digging up the soil, pour the crushed slag (from the furnace with coal). One square meter of land will need a 1-liter can of such impurities. This means of wireworm allows you to reduce the number of larvae of the beetle a few days after the digging of the earth.
Also for watering it is recommended to prepare a three-day infusion, consisting of:
- nettle (500 g);
- crushed celandine (100 g);
- dandelion (200 g);
- mother-and-stepmother (200 g);
- water (10 liters).
Watering is carried out 2-3 times, thus making weekly breaks.
Wireworm can cause irreparable harm to vegetable and grain crops, therefore, it is necessary to take various measures to combat it.