Grape Tick - How to Get Rid of a Parasite?

If reddish convex spots began to appear on the leaves of the grapes, and a white downy coating appeared on their underside, this indicates that the plant was attacked by a tick. The most active migration of this parasite occurs during the period of budding; at this time, ticks are carried around the site by birds, larger insects, or simply by the wind. And with their large numbers, grape harvest is in serious danger.

Characteristic

The grape tick, also known as itch or felt tick, is widespread almost everywhere and lives where grapes are cultivated. It is quite difficult to notice the parasite at the first stages of infection, since they are very small and not visible to the naked eye - the body length of the female is about 0.17 mm, the male is not more than 0.14 mm. The body is worm-shaped, cylindrical in shape, the integument is milky white or somewhat yellowish. On the back of the body there are bristles looking forward, on the abdomen there are numerous rings with very small spikes.

Biology

The life span of a felt tick is small - 1-2 months, which usually depends on the conditions in which it lives. Throughout her life, one female is able to make about 7-10 clutches, each of which can have from 20 to 300 eggs. The eggs are oval, have a transparent structure; their female is located on the lower surface of the sheet plate, where she fixes it using her own secretions that look like a cobweb or thread of felt.
Adults spend the winter either in the kidneys, climbing under their scales, or under the fallen leaves, as well as under the bark of the vine.

On a note! In one small kidney, about 1000 individuals of a grape tick can hide!

In the spring, pests wake up and, as the shoots grow, spread through the foliage, starting to actively eat. In the process of feeding, a felt mite secretes saliva, which, when mixed with plant juices, causes intensive cell division, as a result of which leaf tissues begin to deform. And where there are too many parasites, the leaves have rather extensive concave sections with a white felt coating inside.

Malware

Felt grape mite is able to multiply very quickly and, despite its relatively short life, causes grape plantings serious harm. Rapidly spreading through the infected plant, parasites disrupt leaf growth and affect their color - they acquire a reddish-brown hue. This condition is not normal for plants, and therefore their photosynthesis is disrupted, due to which the leaves gradually dry and fall off. If the grape itch has reached inflorescences, then they will also soon change their natural color to red and subsequently die.

Thus, if the felt tick is not stopped on time, then after a while the grapes will lose all their green mass, then the fruits and the bush will die. However, it is very important not to confuse this parasite with mildew - a fungal disease of grapes.Recognizing the pest is quite simple - you need to slide your finger along the felt coating, and if it remains in place, then you are dealing with a grape tick.

Methods of struggle

As soon as traces of the activity of a felt mite were found on the grapes, the infected vine must be cut off immediately. At the same time, the modified foliage is removed and the boles and sleeves are cleaned of the infected bark, on which traces of damage are already visible. All collected vegetation should be immediately collected and destroyed away from the vineyard, ideally - outside the site. This agricultural technique will allow you to properly start the fight with felt mites, significantly reducing the number of adults and larvae.

Grape Tick Preparations

Very good results in the fight against felt mites show a solution of DNOC. It is used in early spring, even before the buds open. The affected bushes are sprayed with them, paying particular attention to the lower parts of the leaf plates.

Colloidal sulfur and preparations containing it are considered one of the most effective remedies for grape itching. They are used a little later than the above solution - when the shoots reach about 5 cm in length. Colloidal sulfur is sprayed with infected bushes twice a season with a break of 10-14 days.

Important! It is necessary to process grapes with colloidal sulfur preparations at a certain air temperature - at least + 20 ° C. This condition must be observed so that the active substances can evaporate and penetrate the felt to destroy parasites!

With mass outbreaks of grape tick population in the summer, it is advisable to use acaricides or insectoacaricides. For use in open ground adapted pesticides such as:

• Bazudin
• "Fufanon";
• “Actellik”;
• "Zolon";
• "Fozalon";
• "Thunder";
• Thunder 2;
• "Karbofos";
• "Accent";
• "Dursban";
• Stormbreaker, etc.

Important! However, it should be remembered that for many drugs from the organophosphorus group, mites may already have immunity. You can, of course, increase the concentration of the working solution, but this can affect the condition of the plants, and the quality of the crop, and its suitability for food!

A good alternative to the above toxic chemicals is the Envidor drug. This is a new generation acaricide from the class of ketoenols. It shows contact-systemic activity against adult females, larvae and eggs of grape mites. It is recommended to use it in early spring, when the population is not too large, which will help to save the drug on subsequent treatments.

Infected grape bushes should be treated carefully, but not necessarily completely. The main thing is that the solution falls on the underside of the leaves, since it is there that the pest lives. In order to properly spray the affected area, the nozzle of the sprayer must be lowered to the ground itself and gradually moved up. Thus, only the area where there is a white coating will be processed.

Sometimes only one use of the drug is enough, but if the case is started, it is quite possible that there will be not even two treatments, but three - the last one is also carried out 10-14 days after the second, but no later than 30 days before the harvest.

Folk remedies

If you noticed the damage to leaves characteristic of grape itching in time, and there were not so many of them, then in this case you can apply more sparing control measures - products prepared according to folk recipes.

• Infusion of onion husks. 200 g of raw material should be put on a bucket of hot water and left warm for two to three days, then filtered and used to treat damaged foliage and woody parts of bushes.
• Infusion of marigolds. To prepare this product, you should take half a bucket of dried marigolds and pour them with 10 liters of warm water.After two days, the infusion is filtered, 40 g of finely chopped soap are added to it and used to spray the plants.

It is advisable to carry out the treatment in dry weather early in the morning or in the evening after sunset. This will prevent the formation of burns on the foliage.

In autumn, the vine can also be treated with a 5% lime solution.

Prevention

Certain measures are known that can prevent the infection of the vine with a tick mite. These include:

• timely destruction of cut crop residues and fallen leaves;
• obligatory spring and autumn digging of the soil and its loosening in the near-trunk zones;
• carrying out preventive treatments in the hot season with acaricides or insectoacaricides;
• regular inspection of bushes for damaged foliage and timely tying of the vine - it should not lie on the ground.