This article was written for a long time, not once I returned to it. Gooseberry pests in the garden - what are they? You can list for a long time - for sure, there are many of them ... But, starting to write this article, I did not know which pest visited my girlfriend’s site. I was not ready for such a turn ... The gardening practice did not throw me such problems. But the readers of our group on the social network Odnoklassniki helped me. I hope these tips will help everyone who comes across a sawfly caterpillar on their plants in the garden.
Who eats gooseberry leaves
So, one day she came to her friend and gasped! She was with her five days ago - she admired the gooseberry bushes: the berries are large, clean, and the bushes are beautiful, okay. We agreed that in the fall she will give me several processes. And yesterday I received a slight shock: all the gooseberry bushes are without leaves, only some berries on the branches. Gooseberries eaten leaves, what should I do?
If you watch this video, you will understand my emotions about the gooseberry bushes with eaten leaves:
A friend says that this happened literally in one night or one day. I visited her on Monday evening, and on Wednesday morning she went to the gooseberry to pick berries for compote ... and also received a slight shock from what she saw. Moreover, all the leaves are eaten only at the gooseberry.
She has three bushes: two grow side by side (they are in the picture above), and one in the other corner of the plot. All three gooseberry bushes, regardless of their location, are without leaves, but with berries. Blackcurrant grows nearby, grapes - all leaves are whole. We walked around the whole site with her - no traces of such a cheeky, gluttonous pest were found on any plant. Only gooseberries without leaves. From the leaves there were only streaks.
This is especially evident on the lower right side of the photo. The photo, of course, is not of very good quality, I'm sorry, - I took it on the phone, I did not bring a camera with me.
Theoretically, I can assume that these are tracks. Only they can cope with a large number of leaves in a short period. But where did the tracks go? And what are their names? On the gooseberry bushes, under them, at the most careful inspection, we did not find anyone ...
Maybe someone came across this?
Do you know a pest - a lover of gooseberry leaves?
*****
I am completing the article a month after finding the problem. I asked similar questions to colleagues from our groups at Odnoklassniki and VKontakte. Answer received.
Pest - yellow gooseberry sawfly - caterpillar
There are many varieties of the sawfly, or more precisely, more than 5.5 thousand species. The yellow gooseberry sawfly harms not only gooseberries, but also red and white currants.
Sawyer is a flying insect. If you look closely, it’s even beautiful - the head is black, legs are yellow. The sawmill hibernates in a pupal state. In the early spring, it flies out of the pupae at a time when gooseberries and currants are blooming. Adult flying insects are practically harmless to our garden, they even decorate it. Their main life task is to lay eggs on the underside of the leaves of the plant. After that they die.
After 7-12 days, young sawflies, caterpillars, appear from the testicles. Here they are harming the garden, biting into the buds, leaving holes in the leaves. Growing up, the caterpillar sawyers can eat all the leaves on the plant - they leave only hard veins. If there are a lot of pests, then because of their gluttony, the bush can become completely naked in 1-2 days. This, by the way, happened to the gooseberry of my friend.
After such a gorgeous dinner, caterpillar saw cutters creep into the soil, pupate there. Two weeks later, adult individuals fly out of the pupae and lay their eggs. After two weeks, the caterpillars hatch from the eggs. And everything repeats.
In conditions of a long Kuban summer, at least three generations of track sawflies can develop.
Bushes of gooseberries or currants, left without a single leaf can dry out and die, as the process of photosynthesis is disrupted.
Sawmill control measures
Gooseberry caterpillars eaten leaves, how to fight? There are mechanical, biological and chemical measures to deal with a sawfly on gooseberries or currants.
The mechanical method of struggle is simple and quite effective if carried out on time. Spread a piece of fabric under the branches and shake the bush well several times. This is enough for all the tracks to fall down. Gently roll up the fabric, burn along with the tracks.
There are many biological methods. One of the most harmless, but effective, is that. Spray the gooseberry and currant bush with water, and then dust it with finely sifted wood ash. Settling on the leaves, ash will make them inedible - the pest will die.
How to spray gooseberries from caterpillars? Caterpillars of the sawfly also will not eat leaves sprinkled with bitter infusions. Such will make them infusions of mustard, wormwood, tansy, yarrow, celandine. After each rain, spraying must be renewed.
There is another interesting way to deal with the sawmill. But it is more suitable for pest control in the pupal stage, it will be better to use it in early spring. Normal sludge will help. As soon as the snow melts, dilute the river or silt from the pond to a creamy mass and pour it into the center of the bush. The sludge spreads under the bush, dries and forms a dense crust from under which the insects will not get out of the pupae.
Of the biological preparations for protecting gooseberries or currants, experts against young caterpillar sawflies recommend the use of lepodocide and bitoxibacillin. When preparing solutions, follow the instructions. I want to focus only on the following point: these solutions should be sprayed on plants in cloudy weather or after sunset, since ultraviolet rays have a destructive effect on the biological components of the preparations. By the way, do not expect that the saw cutters will not be on the same or the next day. They will become, of course, less, but the mass death of insects usually occurs in 2-3 days.
Chemicals should be used only in case of emergency, if other means have not helped. There are many such drugs. Against the caterpillar sawfly are those that are designed for leaf-eating insects - Spark, INTA-VIR, Decis and many others.