You work, you work all summer, like a black man on a plantation. In the autumn, you dig up potatoes, you hope to enjoy the harvest, and here ... The crop is damaged by a wireworm. It’s most offensive to realize that this is not just that, damaged tubers can begin to rot during storage, and when used, most of the tubers go to waste. Then the gardeners think about how to get rid of the wireworm in the garden.
The kitchen garden, summer cottage feed not only their direct owners. All creatures, including the wireworm, are still striving to "sit on the tail" to the owner. This is the name of the larvae of the nutcracker. The beetle itself poses no threat to humans; it, like butterflies, eats nectar, drinks it with dew, lives only two weeks. The main purpose of his life is to lay eggs in the soil. This is where the epic begins, entitled "How to Get Rid of the Wireworm in the Garden". Eggs develop in about half a month or a month, depending on weather conditions. If it’s dry and hot, they’ll just die. The wire is similar to cylindrical worms, 1 to 2.5 cm long, elastic and hard to the touch. They like soil with medium acidity, moist with a lot of weed. Nutcracker larvae live in the soil for 4 years. During this time, they go through the stage from eggs to pupae. Moreover, starting from the second year of development, they only do what they eat
everything that meets on the way. The larva is especially voracious before turning into a chrysalis; during the winter, it transforms into a bug, which flies in May.
Apart from the fact that the wireworm loves the roots of wheatgrass, then he eats everything that grows in the garden. But most of all, for some reason, potatoes go. Maybe it just covers large areas. How to deal with wireworms on potatoes?
First you need to get rid of weeds, especially wheatgrass - a delicacy for larvae. Next, you need to correctly observe the agricultural technology of growing vegetables. The soil must be dug in late autumn. This allows you to get rid of not only wireworms, but also from many pests. During the digging, it is worthwhile to add ash or quicklime, eggshell, chalk, mineral fertilizers to the soil. Of course, if larvae or pupae are encountered during digging, they must be mercilessly destroyed. In the spring, before planting, seeds (almost all vegetables) should be soaked in potassium permanganate. Some experts suggest the same solution.
spray grooves on the beds. People advise adding soaked onion husks to the potato holes. The beds in the summer should be deeply loosened. There are summer residents who, in the fall, once every five years, add salt to the soil, and you can also spray dry crushed tansy flowers in the excavated area in the fall.
How to get rid of wireworm in the garden using chemicals? There is a substance called diazinon. It is part of some drugs found on store shelves. These drugs are diluted according to the instructions and are introduced before planting vegetables in the ground.
There is another very good way to get rid of wireworm in the garden. This is a planting of green manure; these include mustard and radish. They need to be sown after harvesting, the wireworm does not tolerate them. Dig in the spring and you can plant vegetables.