Smelling carpenter caterpillar - appearance, description, methods of struggle

Good day. On my site there is a small garden. I really love fresh apples and pears, so I carefully look after the trees.

And their recent inspection made me wary: on the trunk in several places I noticed red-brown deposits.

There was no doubt - this is the result of the activity of the caterpillar of the odorous carpenter. It was impossible to procrastinate, so I immediately began to take active steps to protect my garden. Now I will share with you details about this pest and how to deal with it.

The odorous woodsail Cossus cossus L.

The odorous (willow) tree-wearer is a serious pest of gardens and green spaces. The pest is best known for the characteristic smell and bright color of the caterpillars.

10 centimeters of woodworm caterpillars can be seen even in the city, on the ground or on the asphalt of the sidewalks under the trees during their movement to new feeding places.

Poplar in urban green spaces is also severely damaged.
Directly butterflies themselves, nondescript, awkward, with a thick abdomen and dark gray wings, are found on tree trunks in June.

Morphology

Imago Butterflies have a wingspan of 75-100 mm. The front wings of the butterfly are dark gray or brownish in numerous black dots and strokes. The hind wings are gray-brown, with wavy lines of a darker color. The body is densely covered with hairs, the abdomen is dark with lighter transverse stripes, narrowed to the end. The back of the chest is white behind, with a black collar.

The eggs. Eggs elongated, light brown, with dark stripes, 1.5 mm.
Larvae are up to 10 cm long. Caterpillars after leaving eggs of meat red color, subsequently become yellowish-red with a brownish-red back, a shiny black head and dorsal shields.

Drilled flour is poured out of the machined moves. The moves are drilled in the trunks, juice mixed with the excrement of the pest is released from the damage sites. Pupae dark brown, about 30 mm long, enclosed in cocoons of bits of wood.

Before the appearance of the imago, the chrysalis is pushed out of the cocoon head first from the ground or the exit opening of the passage in the wood by about half the length.

Development

Imago Butterflies fly in the summer in June-July, lay eggs in the crevices of tree bark. They are active mainly in the evening and at night. The female lays up to 1000 eggs in small heaps throughout her life, pouring them with brown rapidly hardening liquid.

The eggs. Butterflies do not need additional nutrition to lay eggs. Egg development lasts 10-12 days.

After wintering, they damage the wood, gnawing in it large oval passages, each caterpillar is its own. They live under the bark for 2 years. They bite through the passages from the bottom up with oblique transverse passages and galleries. In the third year of life, they pupate in dry stumps, in passages cut into tree trunks, or shallow in soil.

Dolly. They pupate in May-June, having previously prepared an outlet. The pupal phase lasts from 12 to 45 days. The full cycle of pest development is 2 years. Butterflies emerge from the pupae in the spring of the 3rd year.

Morphologically close species

According to morphology (external structure) of adults, butterflies of the species Cossus modestus are closest. They differ from the described species in size - the wingspan does not exceed 40 mm. In addition, in the male genitalia, the upper edge of the valva is without lobate inversion, and the top of the valva is pointedly wedge-shaped.

Geographic prevalence

The range of odorous woodworms includes Eastern and Western Europe, the Caucasus, Western Siberia, North Africa, Asia Minor and Western Asia.

Malware

Caterpillars damage the apple tree, plum, pear, very often oak, alder, birch, bird cherry, poplar, willow and other tree species in parks, forest belts and forests.

The most affected are trees with soft wood, at the edges of the forest, or solitary, located in a field or in meadows. Damaged trees become less resistant to various fungal and bacterial diseases.

The first year of life, the larvae live under the bark of a tree with whole broods consisting of several tens or even hundreds of individuals in one tree, significant areas of cambium gnaw out, which causes the bark to dry out. You can see the bark lagging behind the trunk.

Fight

Pesticides:

1. Chemical insecticides: Spraying during the growing season: Dimilin, SP
2. Biological insecticides: Spraying during the growing season: Lepidocide, P

Mechanical methods. Success in pest control comes from the fight against young caterpillars that still live in clusters under the bark. After the caterpillars have spread and began to damage deeper sections of wood, it is more difficult to deal with them.

If damaged trees with broods of caterpillars are found, it is necessary to clean the dead and lagging bark with a garden knife, destroy the larvae, lubricate the wounds with clay with lime, garden varieties, lime with copper sulfate solution.

Chemical methods. On valuable tree species, cotton balls moistened with insecticides are placed in the tracks of the caterpillars to destroy them.

Also, in gardens, in order to preserve individual trees damaged by caterpillars, organophosphorus insecticide solutions are injected into their passages with a rubber bulb or syringe.

Biological methods. Caterpillars and pupae of the odoriferous carpenter destroy birds - cuckoos, pikas, tits, woodpeckers, rooks, magpies, orioles and others. Riders from several families also infest pest caterpillars.

If the weather is wet, some pests die from diseases caused by fungi and bacteria. Attracting insectivorous birds to the gardens can help significantly reduce the number of odoriferous woodworms.

What kind of caterpillar?

A large nondescript butterfly that looks like a nocturnal moth and, similarly with it, leads a nocturnal lifestyle, can become quite a big nuisance for the garden. And the point is not even in it.

Woody odorous (Latin name Cossus ligniperda Fr.) is widespread throughout Russia. This caterpillar is quite harmful to some deciduous trees. In the first half of summer, a butterfly lays eggs in deciduous trees on the underside of the trunk.

A bunch of eggs is carefully poured with resinous juice, which tightly holds the masonry on the surface of the trunk and protects it. Caterpillars hatch soon enough, eat around the top layer of wood - sapwood, and plunge under the bark, where they calmly spend their first winter.

The reason for the sweet smell of wood

Interestingly, the woodworm caterpillar, growing up, changes color. Now this caterpillar becomes pink only on the abdomen, and its back becomes brown red. Adult caterpillar covered with sparse hairs and reaching a length of 10cm.

Moreover, the smell emanating not only from a living caterpillar, but also from a mummified one, is quite strong. From it you can even determine that the tree is hit by a woodworm.

At numerous garden forums on the Internet, many users are interested in the reason for the smell of trees. Here's the answer - a sharp vinegar smell exudes a woodworm caterpillar. And, if there are a lot of caterpillars, then the smell from them is heard even at a distance of several meters from the tree. However, it may be too late to save the tree.

The fact is that initially the butterfly lays its eggs, choosing sick, weakened trees. If single specimens survive, then the tree is not in danger. If they develop in large numbers under the bark, then they can destroy the tree quickly enough.

And the reason for this is that the fact of infection is detected quite late. Well, it’s not customary to sniff trees in our country in order to identify woodworms. But, if there are holes on the trunk, the outlet of which is covered with drill flour and wood juice is released, then this is it.

Unfortunately, in the late stages of infection (when the leaves dry out and most of the crown flies around), it is already useless to fight the caterpillar. It is important to prevent contamination of the surrounding trees.

Control measures

The caterpillar hibernates twice under the bark, making long longitudinal passages in the wood from the bottom to the top of the trunk with transverse galleries, disrupting sap flow. At the beginning of the third summer, caterpillars pupate, located in the immediate vicinity of the exit to the surface.

The pupal period lasts from two weeks to one and a half months, after which a full-fledged butterfly leaves the bosom of its native tree. Sometimes a woodworm caterpillar looks for another place to pupate.

Independent measures to combat the carpenter are not very wide. If you saw characteristic openings on the trunk or realized that the cause of the vinegar smell from woody plants is the defeat of the woodworm caterpillar, you can take the following measures to control the caterpillars:

Woody odorous (ordinary or willow)

The size of the butterfly is 35-45 mm. Wingspan - 68-96 mm. A thick butterfly with a massive body, painted in gray or brown tones, with a small dark pattern. All four wings are dull, gray-brown, abdomen with noticeable gray and black rings. At rest, the butterfly folds wings around the body and looks like a fragment of a branch.

Distributed throughout Europe, as well as in North Africa and Asia. It lives almost everywhere where there are deciduous trees. A feed plant is wood of various hardwoods, in which a caterpillar gnaws through passages. Butterfly years in June-July, active at night.

Young caterpillars live under the bark and gnaw passages in the wood. A caterpillar can winter three or four times before pupating. Adult caterpillars leave the tree and pupate in a cocoon underground. Caterpillars have a sharp characteristic odor.

Caterpillars of odoriferous woodweed (Cossus cossus)

The odoriferous woodworm, or willow woodworm (Cossus cossus) is a nocturnal butterfly of the Woodworm family. The wingspan of the male is 65-70 millimeters, females - 75-100 millimeters. The male is somewhat smaller than the female.

The front wings of the butterfly are from gray-brown to dark gray with a marble pattern and obscure blurry gray-white spots, as well as dark transverse wavy lines. Hind wings are dark brown with matte dark wavy lines.

Odoriferous woodworm caterpillars - xylophagous, feed on wood. Caterpillars of the first age of pink or cherry red color, of the last ages - brown-red with a darker back and black head.

At the end of their development, they reach a length of 80-120 millimeters. Caterpillars hibernate in a chamber gnawed in the wood at the end of the stroke inside the trunk, covered with a cork from drill flour.

Caterpillars of the first age hold in groups, biting under the bark and form an extended common course on the surface of the bast. Later, young caterpillars damage the bast layer and cambium, where they make numerous communicating moves filled with drill flour and excrement.

After the first wintering, each caterpillar makes a separate move deep into the wood and to the root of the trunk, in which it continues to develop. The course of an adult caterpillar is a large wide-oval hole with a diameter of 12-16 mm.

On old trees with thick bark in the lower part of the trunk, caterpillars eat out separate long passages only after the first wintering. On thinner trunks with smooth bark, caterpillars penetrate the wood earlier, usually within a month after hatching.

Before pupation, usually at the end of summer - in the fall, the caterpillar of the willow tree carpenter leaves the tree trunk, buries itself in the soil near it, where it builds a dense silk cocoon, weaving particles of soil into its walls. Pupation in early spring.

Pupa stage from 2 to 6 weeks. In the northern regions of the European part of the country and in Siberia, caterpillars do not leave a tree trunk in autumn, but gnaw at the end of the course of the chamber.

Caterpillars damage the wood of fruit trees: pear, apple, plum, cherry, quince, apricot, walnut, persimmon, European olive, wild olive, mulberry, sea buckthorn, as well as willow, poplar, aspen, alder, ash, birch, beech, oak , maple, elm and others.

Protective measures: whitewashing of boles, covering up wounds on trees with garden var, coating of boles with clay with casein glue with the addition of insecticide, as well as cutting down weakened trees inhabited by caterpillars. In gardens, to preserve individual populated trees, an insecticide solution is injected into the caterpillar passages on the boles.

Arboretum odorous

Woody odorous (Cossus Cossus L.) is widespread in the European part, in the Caucasus.

It damages an apple tree, pear, plum, oak, alder, birch, etc. The odoriferous woodworm butterfly is quite large up to 90 mm. in wingspan. Fore wings gray-brown, at dark points and spots. The hind wings are gray-brown, with matte, dark wavy lines.

Young woody caterpillars of an odorous pinkish color. Adults with a brown-red back. The head and chest shield are brilliantly black. Adult caterpillars reach a length of 80-100 mm. The woodworm caterpillars are characterized by an unpleasant specific smell.

Brown pupa, in an oblong cocoon of wood sawdust fastened with cobwebs. The caterpillars of the first and second years of development in the winter, in the passages blocked by a wormhole, winter.

In the spring, cramming into the wood of branches and trunks, they make new moves, mainly longitudinal, from the bottom up, with transverse and oblique side galleries. Wintered twice. Caterpillars of a woodworm smelling in the spring or in the beginning of summer of the third year in the wood, near the inlet, are pupating.

The spawning caterpillars initially keep under the bark in groups of 20-30 caterpillars in each, arranging a common course in which they winter. After the first wintering - in the spring the caterpillars sprawl and each of them makes a separate move in the wood. The moves along the length have branches.

One of the branches usually goes outside and serves the caterpillar to throw excrement. Having wintered for the second time, the caterpillars of a wood-breeder smelling in the spring pupate in the wood, located at the entrance hole. Less often, they crawl out of wood in search of new places for pupation.

Trees inhabited by woodworm caterpillars weaken strongly, become unstable to fungal and other diseases, and die off. Most often, single-standing and marginal trees from breeds with softer wood are damaged by the woodcutter.

Measures to combat woodworkers are poorly developed. It is usually recommended that you destroy heavily infected trees, clean the bark and coat the trees with a mixture of clay and mullein during the flight of the butterflies.

In the literature there are indications of the possibility of poisoning caterpillars by introducing balls of cotton wool or tow soaked in carbon disulfide into the passages through holes in the cortex, followed by their termination.

Cossus cossus

• Type of pest: Pest of fruit crops, pest of protective afforestation
• Row: Lepidoptera - Lepidoptera
• Family: woodworkers - Cossidae

It is found everywhere. It damages oak, willow, poplar, aspen, birch, alder, less often - maple, walnut, fruit.

Butterflies are large: females 85-95 mm, males 70-75 mm long; front wings are dark gray with a fuzzy gray-white pattern, numerous black strokes, hind wings are light brown; the whole body is covered with hairs; antennae comb. The egg is 1.5 mm in size, oval, light brown with oblong black stripes.

The caterpillar is 85-105 mm long, the younger ages are pink, the last age is black-brown, black-yellow on the ventral side; chairman black-brown, shiny, occipital shield yellow-brown. Pupa - 30-35 mm, dark brown, in a cocoon of wood bits fastened with cobwebs.

Caterpillars hibernate twice: the first year of life - under the bark, in family passages, clogged with bits and pieces, the second year of life - in independent passages, machined in wood, mainly in the longitudinal direction.

After the second wintering, caterpillars pupate in late May - early June in dense silky cocoons in passages, rotten stumps, and the surface layer of soil at the base of the trunks. The development of the pupa lasts from 20 to 40 days. Departure of butterflies in June - July. They are active in the evening hours.

No extra power needed. After fertilization, the female lays 20-70 eggs in the cracks of the cortex mainly on the lower part of the trunks and covers the egg laying with sticky secretions, quickly freeze in the air.

In the first year of development of the caterpillar, 4-5 centuries pass, in the next year, 3-4, only 8 centuries. Two-year generation. More often the pest populates weakened trees growing in adverse conditions.

Populated trees are easily identified by drill flour, excrement, brown juice, which flows from the holes and has a pungent smell of wood vinegar. Damaged trees lag behind in growth, sharply reduce the yield of seeds, fruits, get sick and often dry out.

Caterpillars and pupae are exterminated by birds - cuckoo, jay, oriole, magpie, rook, woodpecker, sea squirrel, etc. The pest is infected by horsemen from the families: ichneumonid, chalcid, braconid, tahin flies.

Protective measures. Attraction of insectivorous birds to forest stands. Removing and burning trees is significantly populated by pests and dies. Injection of insecticide into the crawler tracks using a thin tip attached instead of a spray gun to a knapsack sprayer or rubber bulb.

Fruit tree pest control measures

Pest: The odorous woodweed butterfly damages all fruit crops and many deciduous forest trees. A large butterfly up to 9 cm in wingspan appears in June-July.

Females lay eggs until mid-August. Each is able to put up to 1000 pieces into cracks in the bark, branching shoots.

For wintering, caterpillars switch to two or three summer tree branches, gnawing passages in them. In the next season, they still do not become butterflies, moving to new, older branches for food and wintering. For the third season, the caterpillar gnaws at the exit hole, pupates inside the branch and flies out.

Measures against odoriferous woodworms: in case of non-mass damage to garden trees by a pest, you need to inject unworming woodworms odoriferous chlorophos (10 g per 1 liter of water) into their passages on tree branches.

You can stuff cotton balls soaked in gasoline into the passages and then cover the inlets with clay. When you open the moves again, you can repeat the procedure. From the beginning of August to the fall of trees it is necessary to inspect the crowns of trees and remove young shoots damaged by the pest.

Arboretum - Night Butterfly

Arboreal odorifer - a butterfly leading nightlife. It is also called the willow tree.

Appearance

Males have a wingspan of about 70 millimeters, and females are larger - their wingspan is 75-100 millimeters.

The odorifer carpenter's front wings can be gray or gray-brown with dirty white spots and dark transverse lines, creating a marble pattern.

The rear wings of an odoriferous carpenter are dark brown with dark matte lines.

The chest in the upper part is dark, and towards the abdomen it brightens and becomes almost white. The abdomen is thick, dark gray. It is covered with hairy scales. Females have a retractably distinct ovipositor.

Habitat

These butterflies live in Western Europe, China and the Mediterranean. They live in the forest-steppe and forest zones of the Caucasus, Siberia, the Far East, Transcaucasia and Central Asia.

They are found in all areas of deciduous and mixed forests, in gardens, parks and forest plantations. In the Caucasus, they rise to the upper border of the forest, and in Tajikistan and Turkmenistan they live in oases.

Lifestyle

It is a sedentary species, leading a nocturnal lifestyle. Flight falls at the end of May and the beginning of August. On the Black Sea coast, in warm weather, flight can begin in mid-April. In Transcaucasia, it runs from May to July, and in Tuva and Buryatia from June to August.

Willow carpenter fly low above the ground. The flight lasts about 2 weeks, mainly at night.

Breeding

Females of these butterflies lay their eggs, usually in the crevices of trees. In clutch there can be 700-1000 eggs. She lays them in heaps of 15-230 pieces. Eggs are oblong in shape, about 1.2-1.7 millimeters long, light brown in color. They are coated with a sticky substance that freezes in the air.

Caterpillars of the first age create a common course and stick together. The passages are filled with excrement of caterpillars and drill flour. After wintering, each individual gnaws deep into a separate passage, where they develop.

The adult caterpillar makes moves with a diameter of spikes of 16 millimeters. On trees with a thick bark, caterpillars make moves only after the first winter, and on trees with a smooth thin bark, they penetrate the wood earlier, most often a month after hatching.

At the end of summer, the caterpillar leaves the tree and digs into the soil next to the tree. Then she makes a silk cocoon, adding pieces of soil to its walls. In that cocoon, the caterpillar pupates.

In it, she spends another winter. In spring, adult caterpillars remain in the tree, and in June they leave the trunk and turn into pupae in the soil.

Harm caused by willow woodworms

The caterpillars of these butterflies harm fruit trees: apple trees, plums, pears, quinces, cherries, persimmons, apricots, sea buckthorn, mulberries, wild and European raspberries. Also, poplars, alders, birches, maples, oaks, ash and other trees suffer from them.

Aromatic woodworms are a rare species, so it is listed in the Red Book.

Corrosive wood - a dangerous pest of apple plantations

In the technology of growing apple trees, fertilizer systems and integrated protection are an integral and very expensive component. The species diversity of pests and diseases requires constant monitoring of their development, and the implementation of preventive and preventive protection measures.

Today, well-studied and regulated pests are numerous species of leafworms, codling moths, sucking pests (thrips, leaf flies, cicadas, ticks), and fungal pathogens.An extremely harmful and dangerous object due to a hidden lifestyle is the corrosive woodworm.

It is most common in deciduous forests, shelterbelts, parks. A pest is a polyphage that damages fruit, in particular an apple tree, a pear, and to a large extent, forest species: ash, willow, poplar, aspen, birch, alder, oak, maple, and walnut.

The woodworm causes particular harm in the southern regions of Ukraine and the Crimea, where it leads to the death of entire arrays of fruit plantations.

In gardening, only two species are harmful - the corrosive woodworm and the odorous woodworm (the latter is named because of the specific smell emitted from the special glands of the caterpillar).

Male - with a wingspan of 50 mm, has a feathery antennae. The wings are white, between the veins there are dark blue or dark green numerous spots (the same ones on the back - three pairs). The abdomen is dark blue with white rings and a brush of white scales at its end.

Female - up to 70 mm long, has a long ovipositor. Butterflies revive in June-July, by the autumn they lay eggs individually or in groups of 20-200 specimens each, placing them at the tops and at the branching branches of shoots, at the base of the buds. Fertility of females, according to various sources - from 1000 to 2000 eggs.

The egg is 0.8-1.2 mm long, oval, bright yellow. Embryonic development lasts 10-12 days. The revival of the caterpillars begins in the third decade of June and continues in July.

The caterpillar is up to 60 mm long, 7 mm thick, yellow, sometimes pinkish, each segment has black dots with short hairs. Head, chest and anal shields are dark brown.

Caterpillars are 16-footed, live under the bark and in the wood of various trees and shrubs. First, young caterpillars damage the current shoots, biting into them through a stalk or near the kidneys.

Affected shoots dry up and become clearly visible against the green crown of trees. By autumn, the caterpillars move to thick branches, bite into their tissues, where they winter, develop the entire growing season and after the second wintering they pupate in June-July.

This process is extended and lasts from May to August. Butterflies fly from mid-June to mid-August, lay their eggs on trunks and branches. Caterpillars emerge from the eggs, penetrate under the bark, feed on the wood of branches and trunks for two years, gnawing passages under the bark.

Often such damage - moves cover the trunk or branch with a ring and thus disrupt the sap flow of wood. Under a damaged tree you can see a bunch of red-brown wormholes, which the caterpillar throws out of the hole of the course. Caterpillars feed until October.

Damaged trees wither away, young trees and seedlings break even in the places of damage from a slight wind. The harm from the corrosive woodworms is manifested in the general weakening of trees, which affects the decrease in the overall growth of shoots and the yield of fruits.

Fighting the woody pest

Limiting the number of corrosive woodworkers is a rather troublesome business. First of all, this is the acquisition of healthy seedlings in nurseries, because the spread of the pest, in particular, also occurs with planting material.

One of the essential elements of protecting the garden from pests is pruning and thinning of the crown in the autumn-winter period; it helps to remove the branches populated by bark beetles, corridor carpenter, and egg-laying silkworm eggs.

Also, this event creates the best conditions for the complete coverage of leaves and fruits with insecticides during spraying. Dead trees should be uprooted and burned.

In horticultural and windbreaking stripes, a good refuge for this pest is the planting of ash, which is severely damaged by the corrosive woodcutter, so this "neighborhood" should beware.

In autumn and at the end of winter, whitewashing of boles should be carried out to protect them from frost pits, the formation of cracks in the bark, and sunburn. It is also necessary to cover up wounds on trees with garden var.

Garden var is a water-insoluble viscous substance that is used to treat wood cuts and damage. The mixture protects the damaged area of ​​the plant from the penetration of fungi, bacteria and other pathogens through it, prevents the flow of plant juice, and protects against pests.

A garden var is used to protect wounds after inoculation, pruning, damage by rodents, other pests and parasites, and also after the formation of cracks of various origins on the boles.

There are many patented recipes for preparing a garden var. As a rule, it consists of bee products (propolis, wax), vegetable and animal fats, alcohol, rosin, ozokerite, heteroauxin, ashes obtained from burning the vine.

The use of heteroauxin promotes the rapid healing of wounds. A properly prepared garden var is easy to apply, it is sticky, does not dry, does not melt in hot weather and does not crack in cold weather.

A good effect is given by coating the tree stands with clay with mullein or casein glue (200-250 g per 10 l of the mixture) with the addition of gastro-contact insecticides that do not have a phytotoxic effect. With this method, some of the butterflies die during the period of their departure and some of the caterpillars during penetration into the wood.

With a weak population (up to 10%) of boles and tree branches by the caterpillars of this pest, they are destroyed by injecting contact effects into the insecticide passages, followed by closing the passages with clay, garden varieties and the like.

In home gardens in the early spring period, caterpillars in the paths of tree trunks and branches are pierced with wire and injected therein insecticide solutions.

During a massive summer of butterflies, laying eggs and exit of caterpillars of caustic woodworms, the BI-58 is sprayed with a new one, ke, 0.8-4.0 l / ha, Dursban 480, ke, 2.0 l / ha , Pirinexom, CE, 3.0-3.5 l / ha. Processing is carried out in July and August with an interval of 12-14 days, and not only leaves are covered with an insecticide solution, but also the bark of tree branches and boles.

An effective measure to control and prevent the spread of caterpillars is the removal and destruction of the current shoots damaged (populated) by the woodworm in orchards and shelterbelts in August-September, due to which the plantations can be cleaned from the caterpillars by 95%.

In the fruiting apple orchards of autumn and winter varieties, corrosive woodworms are destroyed by spraying against the apple moth.In summer varieties, when trees are massively populated, one or two treatments are needed after picking apples during the period of mass revival of caterpillars.

The number of pests is significantly limited by rider insects whose larvae parasitize in caterpillars of stinging woodworms: Apanteles laevigatus Ratz., Sympiensis sericeicornis Nees., Pristomerus vulnerator Grav.

Some caterpillars die from fungal and bacterial diseases. Significant death of caterpillars of the first age is observed during their settlement, especially in windy weather.

It should be noted that due to the significant harmfulness of wood borers (one caterpillar can destroy a healthy shoot or even part of the crown), manufacturers often make a mistake in controlling the pest, exceeding the consumption rates of insecticides without taking into account their phytotoxicity. This leads to significant damage to the leaf apparatus of the crown through chemical burns.

It is proved that the latter are able to bind harmful impurities in the soil and mobilize the protective functions of plants. They include specific enzymes that increase the resistance of plants to adverse conditions and stressful situations.

Amino acids in the composition of humites contribute to an increase in the concentration of chlorophyll in plants, increase the level of photosynthesis, activate phytohormones, in particular auxin synthesis, and ensure the balance of soil microflora. In stressful situations for plants, the introduction of amino acids has a therapeutic effect.

It is possible to control plant stress with the help of amino acid preparations by their application for foliar top dressing. Moreover, their use is recommended both before the onset of stress, and during its action and after it.

Experts say that a two-year-old apple tree per year needs 10-15 kg of organics, 70 g of nitrogen fertilizers (ammonium nitrate), 200 g of simple superphosphate and 80 g of potassium sulfate.

You need to fertilize the trunk circles with a diameter of 2 m. The tree of the third or fourth year has trunk circles with a diameter of 2.5 m and consumes 15-20 kg of organics, 150 g of ammonium nitrate, 250 g of simple superphosphate and 140 g of potassium sulfate per year.

The tree-trunk circle of an apple tree of the fifth to sixth year increases to 3 m, and the annual demand for microelements for each tree grows as follows: organics - 20-30 kg, nitrogen fertilizers - 210 g, phosphates - 350 g, potassium fertilizers - 190 g.

In an apple tree aged nine years or more, near-stem circles reach 4.5 m in diameter, the annual demand for trace elements: organic fertilizers - 50-60 kg, nitrogen - 280 g, phosphate - 0.5 kg, potassium fertilizer - 340 g.

Phosphates, potash fertilizers, and the entire rate of organics are introduced in the fall under the digging of the trunk circle (in the first three years - 12-15 cm deep). After the third year of life of the apple tree, when its root system goes deeper, fertilizers are applied to specially made three or four wells up to half a meter deep, located at a distance of 1.0-1.5 m from the tree trunk.

Two-thirds of nitrogen fertilizers are applied during budding, and one-third after apple blossoms, for this you can use ammonium nitrate, humus or urea. It is better to introduce them in the near-stem circles of the tree often and in liquid form - as a solution of fertilizer of low concentration in pure water.