We reveal all the secrets of the Colorado potato beetle

Why are we losing up to 40% of the harvest of our "second bread"? Rather, from whom? Look at this "handsome". Impressive, isn't it? This is a Colorado potato beetle in the garden. Let's try to get to know him better.

Colorado potato beetle in the garden: information about the pest

It is a class of pests that feed on the foliage of plants. Dangerous enough for agriculture. Large enough for an insect, reaching about a centimeter in length. A characteristic feature is light elytra: each has 5 black stripes. The beetle flies well - the striped "Icarus" can sometimes fly ten kilometers, and can accelerate to eight, but rarely flies in a hot period. In the winter cold, the pest while away its time in the ground about fifty centimeters in depth. Having got out from there in the spring, they immediately begin to feed and mate. And soon attached bright orange ovipositions appear on the underside of the potato leaves. From them, not keeping yourself waiting long, hatch small dark orange babies.

Young larvae gnaw the lower surface of the leaf plate, but in the process of their growth, their appetite increases so that only veins remain from the leaf. They subsequently develop a bright orange color due to the carotene in the leaves eaten. The larvae crawl all over the potato bush, then they have another molt and this ends with the fact that they leave the eaten bush and burrow into the soil, where they pupate. After one to two weeks, the pupation period comes to an end and an adult pest appears, which begins to feast on the leaves of potatoes. They do not prefer other food (except for leaves) - because these beetles are from the leaf beetle family. In the Russian non-chernozem soil, the pest displays only one or two generations, and in warmer regions it manages all four. A beetle hatched from a pupa is able to immediately, without leaving the soil, go into a special state of dormancy. An absolutely known example of such a state of dormancy is hibernation, in which all vital processes freeze. Different insects enter this state under different circumstances. But the Colorado potato beetle has surpassed absolutely everyone here too: it has six different states of dormancy (two winter, three summer and one super dormancy, when the insect is in the soil for two or three years without waking up). This circumstance greatly complicates the war with him. The striped leaf beetle has one more feature: it is able to quickly adapt to any pesticides directed against it. And what else can you revive from an insect that feeds on poisonous plants? This beetle is absolutely insensitive to all types of alkaloids.

Control methods

A truly effective method of war with this pest has not yet been found. But there is another variant of the struggle: the biological method - predatory bugs podizus and perillus, as well as the parasitic wasp edovum, unfortunately, do not withstand the harsh Russian winters, they simply freeze out. The created transgenic potato varieties, which are able to generate soil bacteria toxin destructive for parasites, do not help either. Therefore, gardeners today still manually collect adult beetles and young larvae in buckets of water, plant on the sides of a plot with potato crops, which supposedly scare off pests (various legumes, calendula, tobacco, and so on).

The monument to the gardeners depicts just the manual collection of the striped pest.