Potato moth - how to fight it and protect potatoes?

The appearance of the potato butterfly is unattractive:

1. Its wings are gray in color with a large number of black spots; when the insect folds its wings, these points are transformed into long dark lines.
2. The harmful butterfly has antennae and a reduced mouthparts.
3. The insect lives only a few days, less often weeks.
4. Its length can reach 6-7 mm; due to its color, it is almost invisible to the eye.
5. Insect larvae are very small in size - 13 mm.
6. The harmful insect is white-pink or white-light green.

The harmful butterfly reproduces by laying eggs; they are very difficult to find even at close range. Eggs can be found on the underside of a potato leaf. When laid, the eggs are white and then darken over time. One female potato moth butterfly is capable of continuing its genus by a hundred individuals.

The life cycle of a harmful insect from egg to butterfly is about a month. This insect does not tolerate severe frosts; it dies already at -4 degrees, which is why it is not found in the North. These insects overwinter in potato tubers and can survive even if they are slightly frostbitten.

It also happens that a harmful butterfly can overwinter in open ground under a layer of fallen leaves. Potato moth can live not only on potatoes, but also on tomatoes, eggplants and peppers.

Insect larvae feed on the leaves themselves, as well as their stems and tubers.

Features of development

Potato moth - photo:

In summer, under consistently warm weather conditions, the development of a moth from egg to adult lasts 3-4 weeks. But the duration of development is influenced by the temperature factor , namely:

• + 35°C – development lasts 16 days;
• +20…+27°C – 28-30 days;
• +15…+20°C – 60-70 days;
• fluctuations from +8 to +20°C – 120-150 days;
• +10°C – development is delayed for up to 200 days.

As you can see, the potato moth is able to develop, practically regardless of the conditions surrounding it .

Appearance

Potato moth
Potato moth is a small, inconspicuous insect similar to a moth. With a full wingspan, its dimensions do not exceed one and a half centimeters. The appearance of the moth is inconspicuous: the front wings are gray-brown with dots and stripes, the hind wings are colored only gray. The edges of the wings are uneven and terry.

Pest eggs and larvae

Appearance : Potato moth eggs are round-oval in shape, reaching 0.8 mm in length and 0.4 mm in width. The color of the egg is pearly white, darkening as the embryo develops inside it.

Where are they deposited, how to detect them ? The butterfly lays eggs on the underside of a plant leaf, often near the veins, leaf petioles or on the stems. Sometimes clutches can be found on uncovered tubers and in the ground. Usually the clutch consists of 1-20 barely noticeable eggs.

caterpillars have clear segmentation and 3 pairs of dark thoracic legs. After birth, the larva is naked, pale in color, with a dark head and scutellum. The length of the newborn larva is 2 mm.

After some time, the caterpillar is covered with small dark bristles and has a pale gray or green tint . On the body you can see a pale longitudinal stripe, a dark brown head and a black shield. The body length of an adult larva is 8-12 mm.

Interesting : the color of the larva directly depends on what it feeds. Pale gray color is characteristic of caterpillars that feed on tubers, and green is the color of the larvae that feed on the vegetative part of the plant.

How does the onion fly harm

The overwintered yellowish-gray onion fly, 6-7 mm long, flies out of the soil in the middle or end of May (during the flowering of dandelions). For several days she feeds on the pollen of flowering plants, but for laying eggs she chooses exclusively bulbous plants. The most “favorite” type of onion by the onion fly is the turnip, but it “does not hesitate” to lay eggs on shallots, leeks or garlic. Female onion flies lay eggs either in the ground near the plants or on their upper scales. A week later, larvae emerge from the eggs, which immediately bite into the onion pulp. Within two to three weeks of intensive feeding on the onion tissue, the larvae of the onion fly grow up to 10 mm in length. Outwardly, they are white, legless, their body is narrowed towards the front end, which is equipped with black mouth hooks. Onion fly larvae cause irreparable harm to the plant: microbes penetrate into the passages they make in the bulbs, the onion rots, its leaves wither and turn yellow, the plant is easily pulled out of the ground .At the end of the feeding period, the larvae crawl out of the bulbs into the soil and pupate. After two to three weeks, a new generation of onion fly flies out of the false cocoon pupae, which again damages the plant and after 20 days of increased feeding returns to the ground. In the soil, the onion fly again pupates into a false cocoon, overwinters in this form, and appears on the surface again in May.

Life cycle

The life cycle of the potato moth consists of four stages: egg, larva (caterpillar), cocoon, butterfly . The embryonic development of potato moth lasts from 5-7 days (summer) to 18-35 days (winter).

After the larva emerges from the egg, it goes through 4 instars (molting) before it turns into a pupa.

The duration of this stage depends on the temperature and living conditions .

Typically, the larva becomes an adult within 10-20 days (summer) and 45-65 days (winter).

The potato moth stays in the pupal stage from 5-6 days (in summer) to 30-90 days (in winter). After the butterfly emerges from the cocoon, it will live only a few days .

Under favorable conditions, life expectancy can be 2 weeks . But during this time it will have time to mate and lay 150-200 eggs .

Optimal temperature conditions for insect development:

• +8…+25°С – for laying eggs;
• +9…+28°С – for embryo development;
• +6…+25°С – for larval growth;
• -4...+40°С is the survival threshold of an adult.

Story

Just some 150 years ago, potato moth was unheard of in our country. This scourge came to our country not so long ago, and the population of the southern regions was the first to become acquainted with it. The natural environment for the potato moth is Africa. It was here that hordes of pests walked in ancient times. Today, the moth has spread throughout the entire planet, where the average annual temperature does not drop below 10 degrees - only in such a climate can the moth reproduce.

Interesting!

The insect spends the winter as a pupa in the ground or in organic matter. If a form has been entered into storage, it continues its life cycle. Depending on the climate, from 2 to 8 generations can change in a year.

It is very important to find out in time what potato moth is and how to fight it.

What harm does it cause?

The main damage caused by moths to potatoes:

• weakening of potato bushes due to “mining” or complete destruction of leaves;
• damage to tubers , correspondingly, a significant decrease in the quality and quantity of the crop;
• reduction in the quality and quantity of sowing potatoes.

Signs of damage:

• entwining stems and leaves with cobwebs ;
• “mining” of tops;
• stem dying;
• wormholes under the skin and in the pulp of the tuber;
• characteristic passages in tubers filled with excrement;
• the formation of rot in damaged tissues.

Signs of the presence of potato moth

The main damage to plants is caused by caterpillars of harmful insects. How to detect potato moth?

There are certain signs by which you can understand that the plant is being harmed by potato moth:

1. The larvae infect the leaves.
2. Butterfly caterpillars leave certain passages on plants.
3. On the leaves, if you examine it carefully, you can find small dimples with insect excrement.
4. If you peel potato tubers, they will probably contain insect passages and larvae.
5. When the tubers are severely damaged, the plants resemble a sponge.
6. Many people confuse the passages of a wireworm with those of a moth caterpillar. In the first insect they are clean and straight, while in the second they are curled into a cobweb.
7. If the caterpillar infects the top of the potato, it begins to wither and dry out.
8. A cobweb appears on the leaves of the plant.
9. Dry or wet rot appears.

Control measures and prevention

How to get rid of potato moth?

If infected potatoes are left on the plantation or simply thrown away, the larva will go into the ground for the winter and will appear again next season.

The fight against potato moth living in fields and plantations is carried out using the following methods :

1. Plant only with seed untouched by insects to a depth of at least 15 cm.
2. Carry out regular hilling of the bushes so that the young tuber crops are under at least 5 cm of soil.
3. Carry out systematic destruction of weeds .
4. Water the plantation using sprinkling (this will lead to the death of most adult butterflies).
5. Digging up potatoes should be done at the very beginning of the tops drying out, or a week before harvesting, cut off the tops and burn them .
6. Harvest the crop as quickly as possible, and remove the harvested potatoes (absolutely all!) from the field .
7. Destroy tubers and trimmings damaged by the larva .

It is also recommended to initially grow early-ripening potato varieties , which are absolutely indifferent to this insect.

In addition to agricultural control methods, you can use remedies for potato moth , such as Danadim, Bi 58, Ditox, Di 68, Rogos-S.

Information about drugs that help fight this pest and how to use them can be found in the article “The best drugs for potato moth (part 1)” and “The best drugs for potato moth (part 2).”

How to deal with potato moth in the cellar

1. Before lowering the harvest into the cellar, you need to carefully inspect and sort it out.
2. If traces of the pest are noticed, the potatoes should be treated with biological solutions.
3. The solution is made from 2 drugs: planriz and lepidocide.
4. You need to take 100 liters of water and add 0.5 liters of planriz and 2 liters of lepidocide to it.
5. The potatoes are immersed in the resulting solution for 10 minutes.
6. After the procedure, the tubers should dry.
7. It will be possible to cook food from processed potatoes in 2 days.
8. There is another solution - bitoxybacillin, lepidocide or denrobacillin.
9. For 150 liters of water you need to take 1 liter of a solution of any of the listed biological preparations.
10. It must be processed in the same way as in the first case.
11. Potatoes can also be treated with a methyl bromide solution.
12. Tubers should be stored in the cellar at low temperatures.
13. Before lowering the potatoes into the cellar, they need to be inspected for the presence of pests.
14. If there are moths in the cellar, then it should be treated with quicklime.
15. You can also use a smoke bomb against the pest “FAS” or “Gamma”.

Control measures when storing potatoes

What are control measures during storage? The main reservoir of fluorimea is the storage area of ​​potatoes, where the pest ends up with the harvested crop . There the moth continues its development.

A huge part of tubers damaged by moths rot. Crop losses can reach 80%. This is why the fight against fluorimea when storing potatoes is so important. How to deal with potato moth in the basement?

In order to preserve the tubers, it is necessary to create unfavorable conditions for the larvae, namely to reduce the room temperature to +2-3°C.

Quarantine measures

1. Compliance with the rules for moving potatoes outside the phytosanitary zone .
2. Availability of certificates that can confirm the absence of a pest.
3. Compliance with phytosanitary measures that are aimed at eliminating the outbreak:

• use of healthy seed;
• maintaining a distance (at least 1000 m) from new storage facilities and crops to old ones;
• high-quality plantation care
• destruction of self-sown crops in fields infected with the pest;
• destruction of tops;
• timely movement of the harvested crop from the field to storage areas;
• separate storage of tubers from different fields;
• treatment of the land in which potato moth was detected with insecticides (every 10 days).

So, potato moth is a very insidious pest .

No matter how scary the “overseas” guest may be, you can and should fight him.

By taking all control and prevention measures, you can save the harvest and ensure healthy development of future crops.

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