Marble Khrushch - a voracious pest with an unusual appearance

Marble Khrushchev, also called Marble Beetle or July Khrushchev, is a pest of agriculture. These insects are part of the order of beetles and the family of lamellae. They are close to May beetles, but much larger. The color of the insect is black or brown, and the shell and head are covered with white spots that give a special marble pattern. Hence the name of this beetle. The size of the marble chafer is 3-4 cm. On the male’s head are beautiful large plate-like mustaches. The antennae of the females look much more modest. There are gray hairs on the abdomen of the insect. In case of danger, the beetle makes a kind of scaring sound, similar to a squeak.

The greatest harm is caused by the larvae of marble chafer, which eat the roots of herbaceous plants and young trees. They can cause serious damage to crop plantations, as well as orchards and vineyards.
These insects live in southern Europe. In Russia - mainly in the south, and in the middle lane these insects are less common. We do not see adult beetles often; this is due to a long period of their development and growth.

Behavior and harm caused by bugs

Marble dumplings are usually found from late June to mid-August. In the heat of the day, they sit out in the soil, and when the sun sets, they get out and fly from tree to tree, eating their leaves. Preference is given to leaves of grapes, fruit trees, oak and pine needles. Mostly males fly actively, and females are characterized by sedentary activity. Mating beetles occurs in the evening. And as the sun rises, the bugs again dig into the ground.

Reproduction and development

The female beetles lay from 30 to 50 eggs in the middle of the summer season and after a few weeks larvae hatch from them - fat white worms that reach 0.75 cm in length and 0.15 cm in width. Their head is red, the lower parts of the jaws are fused. The pupa is yellow in color and about 0.4 cm in size. For the time remaining until autumn, the larvae have time to grow a little and gain strength, after which they hibernate, leaving a depth of one meter in the ground, and in spring they again get to the upper layers. After one year, the larvae molt process occurs, it grows, is stored in fat and hibernates another winter. Only after the third wintering the larva pupates in May and in three weeks an adult individual of marble chrysanthemum emerges, whose main task is to mate and lay eggs during the summer period.

It is interesting! In dark places, the larva can winter for four winters and only after that go to the pupation stage.

Gluttonous larvae cause the greatest damage to trees and shrubs, which, being in the soil, gnaw their roots. In addition, they harm berries, potato tubers, cabbage, cereals, sunflowers, garlic, onions, beets, mint, sage, asparagus, corn and other crops.

Larvae of the first age eat the roots of living and dead herbaceous plants, as well as humus and do not cause significant damage. The most dangerous larvae of the second and third generations.Young trees and seedlings suffer most from all of them, their larvae cut through the root system and the underground part of the trunk. As a result, the plant may die. On older plantations, they damage the root neck. The harm from the larvae of marble chafer is further aggravated by the fact that they choose poor soils on which plants are already weakened. And in the absence of a sufficient amount of moisture in the ground, their activity intensifies.

Important! Young horticulture larvae are especially harmed by young plantings of vineyards and trees if no measures have been taken to eliminate the larvae before planting.

Pest control

The main measures to combat marble chafer can be divided into several types:

1. Agrochemical or forestry activities - these include:
   • carry out logging according to certain rules;
   • make dense plantations in the habitats of marble raspberries;
   • for planting a young forest, it is advisable to use places of fresh felling, but if old felling or areas where there is no vegetation are used, then you must first plow deeply and treat the earth with chemical preparations.
2. Biological methods - it is carried out with the help of natural enemies of the khrushcha, for example, a scoliata insect, which easily searches for a pest larva in the soil, punctures it and thereby paralyzes it. After this, the chin lays an egg in sacrifice. The larva hatched from it is eaten by the larva of marble raspberry, immobilized, but still alive. An adult individual of the scoliot prefers to eat nectar of certain colors: blueheads, phacelia, and round-headed onions. Therefore, to attract this insect to places affected by a marble beetle, it is necessary to grow these plants. It is recommended to plant flowers for several years in a row for a complete and continuous process of extermination of marble rag
3. Of the economic methods, the placement of humus piles on a plot with a warmer temperature than the rest of the earth works perfectly. This attracts many insects for wintering in such piles, among which are marble chafer and a bear. The main thing in time to dig out in these heaps of insects and destroy them.
4. Of environmental control methods, soil mulching is effective. planting plants on agrofibre significantly reduces the likelihood of the emergence of crustaceans (it is important that insects are not present under the film before planting). Excellent results are obtained by mulching the earth with a large pine bark with a layer of about 5 cm. In rosaries, mixborders with this mulch, raspberries almost do not appear.
5. An insignificant effect can be achieved with the use of light traps, 30-50 beetles can really die in them, but, unfortunately, this method cannot destroy all the marble grubbers present, and especially their larvae.
   
6. A simple, but not cheap method against infection with marble raspberries is to cover the most valuable plantings during the breeding season with a fairly dense mesh that protects the ground from the penetration of female raspberries to lay eggs. After the end of the summer, the grid is removed.
7. Digging the ground in the spring and summer can save from the reproduction of the gross on your site, due to the fact that these insects try to avoid loose soil for laying eggs.
8. Chemical protection of the root system - treatment of the roots of seedlings and planting furrows with insecticides.
9. Dressing contaminated soil by spraying with pesticides.
10. If a lot of marble beetles are found on the trees, you need to spray them with chemical solutions.
11. In gardens, the Prestige remedy is effective for soaking seedlings, which helps protect crops for 60 days.
12. Of the means for destroying larvae, diazinone-based agents are most effective. A good time to use them is from the end of May to the end of June, when the larvae live in the upper layers of the soil. You can add the tool to the furrows during the cultivation process.You can distribute drugs along the rows of plants with further digging into the ground.

Once you discover marble chafer in your garden and take a number of measures to protect you, you will have more chances to keep your plants healthy and get a good harvest.