How to deal with strawberry mites on strawberries: choose a tool

If you notice that the foliage on the strawberry bushes began to curl up in tubules, and attempts to fully deploy them turned out to be unsuccessful, then this suggests that it is time to think about how to deal with strawberry mites on strawberries. Usually, when the beds are infected with this pest, the culture continues to develop successfully and even gives quite good first berries. However, after a while, growth and development slow down, foliage turns, turns yellow and falls, and the berries dry out directly on the peduncles.

Characteristic

Strawberry transparent tick belongs to the family of differently clawed ticks. It has a flattened translucent body with fairly rigid integuments. The size of the females is about 230 microns, males - 145 microns. The width of the body is approximately two times less than the length. The dimensions of these creatures are so small that it is impossible to see them with the naked eye.

On a note! Because of these features, the strawberry tick can only be seen with a multiple increase in its photo!

Strawberry mite distributed throughout Europe and North America, it lives where strawberries and strawberries are cultivated. As a result of its vital activity, this creature causes enormous damage to the harvest of these plantings, not only of the current year, but also of the future. This happens due to the fact that the parasite disrupts the normal development of plants and adversely affects the formation of flower buds in the month of August. Its harmfulness often depends on the age of strawberry plantings and reaches its maximum value in the third or fourth year of their development.
In most cases, the infection of beds occurs when using planting material, on which the strawberry tick has already settled. And in the garden, it spreads during weeding and other plant care activities. The parasite moves to neighboring bushes through tools, clothes and shoes when leaves or whiskers come in contact with them.

Strawberry mite is favorable for propagation in warm, humid weather, when the thermometer column arrives at +20 ... 25 ° C, and the humidity ranges from 80 ... 90%. At the same time, direct sunlight for parasites is fatal - being under their direct influence, the body of the pest is dehydrated and soon it dies. For this reason, the tick always settles on the lower side of the leaf plate or on the lower part of the stem - near the ground itself.

Folk methods of struggle

If you are going to plant seedlings and at the same time suspect that there is a strawberry mite on it, or simply want to play it safe, then in such a situation it is recommended to place it for 10-13 minutes in well-warm water at a temperature of about +46 ... 48 ° C. It is advisable to do this in a deep basin so that young plants are completely covered with water. After warm water procedures, seedlings must be lowered into another basin - with cool water, temperature +12 ... + 14 ° C. This will remove the heat shock. Everything, seedlings are ready for relocation to comfortable beds.

A similar procedure is recommended in the first half of August, but not later, so that the bushes have time to get stronger by winter, get good growth buds, strong rhizomes and several leaves planted on short thick cuttings. Next year, in early spring, it is advisable to shed additionally these plants with hot (about +54 ... 58 ° C) water, using at least half a liter for each bush. In this case, it is necessary to try to moisten the petioles of the lower leaves properly.

Prescription Drugs

With obvious signs of infection of the beds with a strawberry tick, the following folk remedies can be used.

• Infusion of onion husks. 200 g of raw material is poured into 10 liters of water and insisted for 5 days, after which it is filtered and used to process beds. Spraying is carried out three times: the first time at the beginning of the growing season, the second and third - after harvesting.
• Garlic water. To prepare it, you will need 200 g of garlic heads. The raw materials must be ground, poured with a bucket of water, mixed thoroughly, filtered and immediately used to spray infected beds.
• Decoction of tomato tops. Pour a kilogram of dried raw materials with a bucket of well warm water (not boiling water!) And leave for about 3 hours. After this time, the infusion must be brought to a boil, boiled for 3 hours and filtered. The finished product is diluted with a similar amount of water, 30 g of finely chopped laundry soap are added and used to process strawberries and strawberries.
• Infusion of dandelion leaves. Another fairly effective remedy for strawberry mites, which is prepared as follows: 800-900 g of greenery is poured with a bucket of hot water (about + 50 ° C) and lasts for 4 hours. After the specified time, the drug is thoroughly mixed, filtered and used to spray plantings.

In addition, after harvesting, you need to choose a hot day and cover the affected plants with polyethylene, carefully fixing its edges. When the temperature below it reaches + 60 °, the film should be removed and the bushes cut to the very root. At the end of the bed they dig and make humus.

On a note! A similar procedure can be carried out in parallel with the use of folk remedies and chemicals to enhance their effectiveness!

Use of insecticides

With severe infection, the fight against strawberry mites is carried out using insecticides. However, sometimes even they are not able to destroy the entire colony of parasites. This is due to the location of the pest - the underside of the leaves and the base of the bush, which when sprayed is quite difficult to completely moisten. In addition, such preparations, especially chemical ones, have time limits, for example, they are not allowed to be used during the flowering period, as they are harmful to pollinating insects and cannot be used later than 30 days before harvesting. Such restrictions allow parasites to increase the number of colonies and with new forces to strike at the landing.

On a note! Insecticidal preparations during spring processing of beds from strawberry ticks will not be very effective. During this period, they are only able to restrain the development of parasites, but nothing more!

So, to protect strawberries and strawberries, they usually use:

• "Karbofos". Insectoacaricide, which has a rather serious advantage over many drugs from its group - it has a short-term effect. 5-14 days after use, chemicals are destroyed. Treatment from strawberry mites with the drug "Karbofos" is carried out in late summer - in August. After removing the berries, the entire foliage is mowed, after which each outlet is spilled with a warm insecticide solution. Then the bed is closed with polyethylene and removed after a few hours. A working solution for this treatment is prepared from the contents of one package (60 g) and 8 l of water.
• Fitoverm. A very popular biological insectoacaricide, which is characterized by low toxicity. Its basis is the vital products of soil fungi.It shows contact and intestinal activity, causing paralysis in the pest and its subsequent death. Does not accumulate in the soil. It is advisable to carry out the drug treatment in the evening, since under the influence of direct sunlight on the foliage, burns can occur. To prepare the working solution, 10 ml of the drug must be diluted in a liter of water at room temperature. If there is a risk of rain, it is advisable to cover the sprayed beds with polyethylene. Processing is carried out 4 times with an interval of 5 days, in hot weather, the intervals are reduced to 3 days.

In addition to these two preparations for strawberry ticks, Actellik is also used - 15 ml per 10 liters of water, Kemifos - 10 ml per 10 liters of water and Fufanon - 15 ml per 10 liters of water.

Prevention

In order not to think what kind of control measures to take to destroy the strawberry tick, it is necessary to take timely care of prevention:

• it is advisable to purchase planting material in proven nurseries, so you will be assured of its quality and cleanliness;
• you should not plant strawberries in the shade, in lowlands and other places where it will be cool and humid, as well as in close proximity to old strawberry beds;
• it is desirable to arrange the bushes in such a way that everyone is well ventilated and illuminated - there should be at least 30 cm distance between them, at least 60 cm between rows;
• it is necessary to regularly loosen the soil and remove weed grass, unnecessary antennae, old leaves and extra rosettes;
• provide timely top-up: nitrogen-containing preparations will contribute to the growth of foliage, and biostimulants and microelement solutions will improve yield;
• after harvesting, but no later than mid-August, remove the aerial parts of plants and burn them off-site;
  

  Important! Composting them is prohibited!

• found infected plants are recommended to ruthlessly dig out with the rhizome and then destroy.

In addition, strawberry varieties resistant to strawberry mites can be planted. Those are: "Torpedo", "Knight", "Zenga-Zengana", "Dawn". Variety "Omsk early" is considered relatively stable.