A pest of wide specialization - mining moth

In another way, a moth is called a miner with an adjective prefix, which damages this pest. These insects parasitize on many plants, including a list of numerous species of trees and shrubs, vegetable and berry plants, and wild herbs.

These insects parasitize even on southern trees: tangerines, oranges and lemons.

Biological reference

Why is it so called: a mining moth or a miner? The fact is that the passages that its larvae gnaw through inside the leaf blade, thereby causing undeniable harm to the tree, are called "mines." By biological characteristics, all moths, including mines, are a subspecies of butterflies.

Reference! Most miners specialize in a particular plant, switching to akin to it only in the absence of basic food.

Description

A small larva with a body of a spindle-shaped segmented shape hatches from an egg laid by a female mining moth. A little later, it turns into a caterpillar with its inherent oral gnawing apparatus, thanks to which it is able to gnaw fiber, eating leaf tissues.

An adult insect moth is a butterfly with a wingspan of up to two centimeters and a varied color of wings, depending on the species to which a particular individual belongs.

Food

Insects feed on the leaves of plants, and the diversity is so great that it strikes the imagination, Even conifers are affected by their miners. The following are lists of far from complete quarantine objects, for example, trees:

• horse chestnut;
• Linden;
• holly;
• sycamore;
• Rowan;
• poplar;
• thuja;
• juniper;
• Apple tree;
• cherry;
• citrus.

Shrubs:

• the Rose;
• rosehip;
• hawthorn;
• honeysuckle;
• spirea.

Herbaceous plants:

• balsam;
• wild strawberries;
• clover;
• clematis;
• bell;
• centaury;
• dandelion;
• violet, including indoor.

Vegetables:

• Tomatoes
• potatoes;
• cucumbers
• beet;
• salad;
• parsley;
• cabbage;
• gourds;
• and others.

Development

Years of a moth, the beginning of its reproduction, is familiar to every lover of nature, who in the summer was not far from a light source. Everyone saw how the night butterflies - moths - began to fly around the light bulb. Among them, miners are also present in large numbers.

Many townspeople are familiar with chestnut and poplar mining moths that parasitize these trees, which are planted to clean the gazed air of the “stone jungle”. So during the summer periods, it is these insects that penetrate apartments and other residential and public buildings located near these trees.

Residents of suburban areas observe such years in butterflies of apple and cherry mining moths.

After mating, the female lays up to fifty small translucent testicles on the leaves of the quarantine plant. Larvae appear after a few days and immediately penetrate into the leaf plate, closing the entrance with an egg shell, a kind of shell.

After this, the growth and development of the larva begins, during which it passes the molting stage several times.

The first three stages of development, from molting to molting, the larva feeds intensely, gaining growth and weight. then at the fourth stage a caterpillar appears and brings its body to readiness for pupation. The fifth stage is characterized by the manufacture of a silk cocoon, after which the caterpillar pupates.

Reference! It should be noted that depending on the type and climatic conditions, the mining moth per season can go from one to five generations.

If the pupal stage occurred in the cold season, then development stops and in this state the miner leaves for the winter, an adult insect will appear only in the spring of next year, when the temperature allows.

Types of miners

We give examples of some mining moths that are most often found in our gardens and kitchen gardens, as well as damage to green spaces, which are easy for the cities of the industrial age.

Chestnut miner

One of the most malicious representatives among miners. Spread across Europe relatively recently, but forced to take exceptional control measures chestnut mining moth. During the season, this pest is able to give three generations of offspring.

Tomato

Mining tomato moth spreads on tomatoes and other plants of the nightshade family: potatoes, eggplant, nightshade, physalis.

Mining moths on tomatoes appear even in greenhouses. If you do not detect infection in time, you can lose a significant part of the crop, because the diseased leaf does not completely provide the plant with photosynthesis products.

In addition to nightshade plants, tomato miner can damage pumpkin crops.

Another pest of vegetables - beet miner moth - parasitizes on all types of beets and some salads.

Apple tree

The pest of fruit trees is the apple-mining moth, which also affects pears.

Cherry

Cherry moth is a pest of stone fruits. Parasitizes on cherries, plums, cherries, apricots.

Plant protection

The fight against mining moths begins with the preventive protection of plants. There are many agricultural practices, using which you can reduce the damage from damage to crop plants by these pests.

1. Autumn harvesting of leaves, followed by laying them in compost.
2. Selection of plants that are not damaged by miners. As an example, biologists usually give chestnuts, the finely flowered species of moth does not affect at all, and larvae die from the leaves of meat-red.
3. Sifting soil for seedlings and planting pits will help get rid of pupae.
4. Use of carnivorous insect riders in greenhouses.
5. Use of adhesive tapes to which butterflies can stick during the summer.
6. Manual collection of affected leaves.
7. Flushing butterflies from foliage under the pressure of a water jet.

Attention! The use of glue traps can destroy beneficial insects, such as various pollinators. Therefore, their use is advisable only in a limited period of moth summer.

Destruction

If the enemy does not surrender, they destroy him. This famous phrase is quite applicable in our case. For the fight, various means are used against the mining moth. Their application can be made in three ways:

• spraying on the leaves;
• soil application;
• injection into the trunk.

The easiest and most affordable way to spray drugs against mining moths on plant leaves. This procedure is carried out every time before a mass flight of insects.

The introduction of chemicals into the soil is undesirable, since it can not only damage the soil inhabitants, but also penetrate the tissues of the fruits used in food. This, incidentally, applies to injection into the trunk, which is also very expensive.

The following insecticides are recommended for the treatment of plants from mining moths:

• “Bi-58 is new”;
• "Dimilin";
• Karate
• Confidor
• "Actara."

Advice! Insects often adapt to constantly used poisons, so re-treatment should be done with drugs with another active substance.

What can the mining moth do with chestnuts, see this video: