Caterpillars on tomatoes in the greenhouse: how to fight for the crop

caterpillars on tomatoes in a greenhouse how to fight
Caterpillars on tomatoes in a greenhouse how to fight

Hello! I almost never buy ketchup or tomato paste in stores. And all because I like to make similar products at home from my tomatoes.

But this year, my plans were slightly disrupted by the massive caterpillar attack on my greenhouse.

Having discovered the threat in time, I quickly got rid of the uninvited guests. Want to learn how to deal with tomato caterpillars in a greenhouse? How to do it effectively? In the article below I will tell you all the important aspects of this struggle.

How to get rid of caterpillars on tomatoes in a greenhouse

Caterpillars on tomatoes in the greenhouse are a real misfortune, because they not only damage the leaves of the plant, leaving unsightly holes, but also eat the fruits of tomatoes, which is absolutely worthless. Most often, tomato caterpillars of tomato scoops are planted on tomatoes in greenhouses.

Important!
They are quite large and long (more than 20 cm), green with 3 stripes of light green color, located along the body. These individuals scoops love to enjoy not only tomatoes, but also bell peppers, eggplant, cabbage, beets, onions and other crops.

Pests develop from the beginning of the summer month, when the pupae turn into butterflies, and they begin to lay eggs after a few days on the stems and leaves of plants. Caterpillars subsequently emerge from the eggs, which in a few weeks after emergence turn into an adult. First, these insects damage the leaves of tomatoes, then they pick up the buds and flowers, and later the fruits themselves begin to eat.

How to fight

Pests can enter the greenhouse only in one way - by flying through a window that is open for ventilation. This can be prevented by hanging protective nets on the windows and doors. You can also carry out a number of complex activities that will help protect plants from insects:

  • It is necessary to regularly destroy weeds, starting in the spring. This will reduce the breeding ground for caterpillars and butterflies.
  • The soil before planting plants needs to be treated with boiling water or a solution of potassium permanganate in order to destroy pests in the ground. Larvae of butterflies tolerate frosts perfectly, being in the soil, so they can only be banned by tillage.
  • Regularly examine the greenhouses during the period when the flowering of seedlings begins, and spray the tomatoes with the preparations “Citcor”, “Decis”.
  • Repeated spraying should be carried out after 1 week to destroy those pests that did not have time to emerge from the eggs at the time of the first treatment.
  • Further processing is carried out only with the help of biological preparations, since during the ripening period, chemicals can harm plants.
  • It is necessary to ensure that the caterpillars do not grow, since it is much more difficult to fight them when they get stronger and gain an impressive size.
  • After harvesting, it is necessary to destroy all plant residues that have been damaged by insects. The entire soil must be dug carefully, and in summer, during the period of seasonal care, it is required to loosen the beds well.

Tomatoes from pests can be treated with special means when planting in the seedling method. Well-known drug "Prestige", sold in a syringe. Before placing the plants, they must be dipped in a diluted product for 30 minutes, and then placed in prepared pits.

This drug helps protect tomatoes from scoops and Colorado potato beetles for the entire season, while additional processing of the plant is most often not required.

Folk remedies

It happens that people encounter caterpillars that damage the leaves and fruits of tomatoes when chemical processing is unacceptable. In this case, you can use folk remedies, which are often used by gardeners to deal with uninvited guests. Mustard, garlic, potato tops, salt, herbal infusions proved to be quite good.

White mustard can be planted in the spring in the ground. After it sprouts, the beds must be carefully dug up and placed there prepared seeds or seedlings of tomatoes. From above, you can spray the plants with dry mustard diluted in water, making a not very concentrated solution.

Celery can be planted between tomato beds. It is believed that the smell of this plant will scare away pests and prevent them from destroying the culture. Coriander differs in similar properties. But with an extensive defeat of caterpillars of tomatoes, these plants will not save.

You can also take herbs celandine, wormwood, shag, tobacco (about 500 g) and 250 g of garlic feathers or plant cloves. The mixture must be poured with 11 liters of hot water and infused for at least 24 hours, after which the finished infusion must be filtered and 0.5 bars of laundry soap added to it. With this mixture, you need to spray the culture both for pest control and for the prevention of their appearance.

Potato tops help from caterpillars. To prepare the infusion, tops should be poured with hot water in a proportion of 1/10. After the mixture is infused, it must be filtered and add laundry soap. With this tool, you can also spray a rose, currant from ticks.

Advice!
The arrows of garlic, if they are in large quantities, can be poured with water and left for 1 week to ferment the mixture. After this, it must be filtered, diluted with water 1/10 and sprayed the whole culture, which has become food for the caterpillars of the scoop.

A solution of water and salt helps to fight pests on tomatoes. To prepare it, salt needs to be diluted in warm water, and then spray the culture. Salt corrodes the delicate body of the caterpillars, and they die, and the tomatoes grow further without damage by insects.

Caterpillars on tomatoes in a greenhouse

Holes in tomatoes - this is unpleasant. They are made by caterpillars that can spoil the entire crop. The fact is that damaged fruits do not ripen, but turn brown and fall off. The question is: how to prevent the invasion of pests? There are several methods.

Tomato caterpillars act mainly on tomatoes. They feed on leaf tissue and fruits.

On the site there are about 1000 types of pests. At the same time, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes and eggplants can suffer from their activities. In many regions, insects can produce a couple of generations in one season.

Tomato caterpillars act on tomatoes, they feed on leaf tissue and fruits
Tomato caterpillars act on tomatoes, they feed on leaf tissue and fruits

The first generation of pests in the greenhouse appears from May to July, the second - from July to September. In the end, it turns out that the tracks are active throughout the season. Determining the presence of a scoop is not difficult at all. Just install fermented kvass or compote in the greenhouse.If the next morning you find dead insects in it, it is time to protect the plants.

How to deal with a scoop

The main method of pest control is digging in early spring or autumn. So you can destroy all the pupae.

Attention!
In the greenhouse during the growing season of the bushes, weeds should be removed in a timely manner, namely they represent a food source for butterflies. Also, do not forget to loosen the aisles.

There are several ways to protect your landings. So, spraying with garlic infusion is actively being conducted. Perform it like this:

  1. pour water on the arrows of garlic;
  2. leave them for 7 days, pouring water in a sunny place so that fermentation occurs;
  3. strain the solution and dilute with water in a ratio of 1 to 10;
  4. sprinkle the resulting mixture of tomatoes in a greenhouse.

You can add a little ammonium nitrate to 10 liters of the mixture, then you will get a good foliar top dressing. Spraying will have to be every 2 weeks.

If you do not have garlic arrows, you can take 200 grams of chopped garlic and pour 10 liters of water. Then they are boiled for an hour. Next, the mixture should be cooled, filtered and processing can be carried out. The addition of tobacco dust (200 grams) and onion peel (200 grams) to the solution is also good. After adding additional products, the mixture should also be boiled.

Caterpillars in the greenhouse will leave if you apply an infusion of burdock leaves. Fill one third of the bucket with chopped leaves of the plant, fill it with water, let it brew for 3 days. Strain the solution, add soap shavings to it and process the tomatoes.

If timely preventive measures are taken, caterpillars will not appear in the greenhouse. At the initial stage of development, parasites should be fought with the help of Agrovertin, Phytoferm, and Lepidocide preparations.

Mixtures should be prepared strictly according to the instructions. The advisability of using chemical agents directly depends on the degree of infection of plants with pests. Caterpillars are negatively affected by such means as Sherpa, Decis, Inta-Vir.

Holes in tomatoes: who hurts and how to fight

For the second year in a row, I am losing part of the harvest due to caterpillars invading the tomatoes. Last year, this pest was only on some plants in the open ground, and this year - in the greenhouse too. I can’t call myself a freshman in gardening science, but there was no such problem before.

It is very unpleasant to look at unripe tomatoes and see holes, and sometimes “windows, with green caterpillars looking out” from there. Damaged fruits do not ripen, begin to grow brown and fall off.

Damaged tomato
Damaged tomato

This pest is a caterpillar of a garden scoop, feeding on leaf tissue, and later on fruits of cultivated plants, in particular tomatoes. There are many different scoops on our sites, because this family is extremely numerous (more than 1000 genera and 11000 species are known).

Not only tomatoes, but also other vegetable crops (peppers, eggplant, potatoes, etc.) suffer from their invasion. In many regions, the pest can produce two generations per season. The first generation of butterflies flies from May to the third decade of July, and the second generation - from mid-July to mid-September, it turns out that the whole season is active.

Important!
They lead a predominantly nocturnal lifestyle, beginning years with dusk.

Determining the presence of a scoop is easy. To do this, you need to put in some container a fermented compote, beer, jam or kvass. If the next morning, dead butterflies find themselves in an impromptu trap, then measures should be taken to protect the plants.

Scoop development cycle

A few days later (3-7) after the female’s departure, the female lays yellow leaves with a diameter of about 0.5 mm on the underside of the leaves of both weeds and cultivated eggs. In the clutch there can be up to 70 eggs. Of these, caterpillars appear about 30 mm long, greenish or brownish in color.

Egg laying scoops
Egg laying scoops

Caterpillars spend daylight hours in the soil, and at dusk they crawl out of the shelter to eat well. Each of them is able to eat up to 20 young leaves or damage several (or 1) unripe fruits.

Caterpillars of winter shovels overwinter in soil at a depth of 10-25 cm. They withstand cold up to - 10 ° С. In spring, pupation occurs. Roughly in May butterflies fly out. Then the cycle repeats.

What is a garden scoop

The body length of the butterfly is about 1 cm, wingspan from 33 mm to 45. The color of the front pair of wings is brownish-gray, spotty.

The rear pair of wings is lighter, it clearly shows the stripes coming from the body at the edges, as well as a dark wide border.

Females from males can be distinguished by antennas; in females, they are bristle-shaped, and in males, they are crested. Pupae of a brown-brown scoop up to 2 cm long with a spike in the last segment.

The main methods of struggle

How to deal with a scoop? An important factor in the fight against scoops is the digging of the soil (autumn and early spring). Pupae are destroyed by this action. During the growing season of plants it is necessary to timely weed out weeds, especially flowering ones, which are a source of nutrition for butterflies, and loosen aisles.

Butterfly stage scoop
Butterfly stage scoop

Effective planting of scaring plants scoop (for example, calendula) along the perimeter of the cultivated. You can protect tomatoes and other plants by spraying with infusion on the arrows of garlic. A bucket of cut arrows of garlic should be poured with water and left for a week in a sunny place for fermentation.

Strain the resulting infusion, dilute with water (1:10) and spray the tomatoes. If you add a matchbox of ammonium nitrate to 10 l of the solution, the effect will increase, in addition, you will get additional foliar top dressing. The procedure should be repeated every 2 weeks.

Advice!
If there are no garlic arrows, then heads can be used. 200 g of chopped garlic should be poured into 10 liters of water and boiled for 1 hour, cool, strain and sprinkle the tomatoes. It will not be superfluous to add onion peel (100-200 g) and tobacco dust (200 g) before boiling.

Infusion on the leaves of burdock will also scare away the scoop. Shredded leaves, condensing, fill a third of the bucket, pour water, leave for 3 days. Strain, add liquid or planed soap, spray the plants.

Biological and chemical treatments

With caterpillars of a younger age, you can fight with the help of biological products Bitoxibacillin, Fitoverm, Lepidocide, Agrovertin, breeding according to the instructions. The feasibility of using chemicals depends on the degree of maturity of the fruit and the number of pests.

They usually have a long waiting period before eating the fruit. Decis, Zeta, Arrivo, Inta-Vir, Sherpa are detrimental to caterpillars of scoops.

Caterpillars on tomatoes - how to deal with them

Pests on tomatoes often have significant damage. When dealing with them, it is important to consider that any means are most effective at the initial stage of plant infection. Therefore, planting control should be carried out daily. Butterflies such as the scoop and whitefly can not be immediately noticed, and their activity can lead to a complete loss of the crop.

Who eats tomatoes?

Butterflies scoops seem very unprepossessing, look like a large moth. With open wings, their size is from 2.5 to 4.5 cm. The color is gray-brown, wings with an ornament of stripes, zigzags and strokes.

Scoops are very prolific, for a season one individual lays 500 or more eggs. Eggs are left on leaves, buds and flowers for 1-3 pieces. The lower part of the eggs is flat, the top is convex, can be ribbed or cellular. Egg development is very fast. In warm weather, the egg ripens from 2 to 5 days, in cool weather - from 4 to 10.

The development period of the tracks is about 20 days, sometimes faster. The body is naked, color gray, brown, yellow-green, not bright. Caterpillars go into the ground to a depth of about 10 cm, where they pupate.Pupae overwinter in the soil.

During the season, butterflies fly from 2 to 5 times, the life expectancy of each 20 to 40 days. The most dangerous for tomatoes are caterpillars. First, they feed on leaves and buds, then switch to fruits, gnaw out holes and settle inside. Tomatoes damaged by caterpillars are unsuitable for food.

Both butterflies and caterpillars are nocturnal.

Why are whiteflies dangerous?

Whiteflies are very small butterflies that look more like midges. Their size is 1.5 - 3 mm. The body is white or with yellowness, wings with white pollination. If you move the plant on which they settled, then the whiteflies take off in a white swarm.

Attention!
They live on the underside of the leaf, sucking juice from it. The upper surface of the leaves becomes covered with white dust, which blackens over time. Leaves curl, dry.

The raid passes to the fruits, they deteriorate. The inside of the damaged tomato is white. The larvae of these butterflies are translucent. At first they are movable, then attached to the sheet and do not move.

Whiteflies are activated in warm and humid weather, and die at temperatures below 10 ° C. The eggs of these butterflies are not afraid of cold; they hibernate at minus degrees in the upper soil layer.

In addition to the harm caused by their vital functions, the danger of whiteflies is that they are carriers of bacterial diseases.

Tomatoes stop growing, the fruits are deformed, new ovaries are not formed. After a while, the plant dies.

Both whiteflies and scoops damage tomatoes both in the open ground and in greenhouses. In addition, they move to other garden crops: eggplant, peppers, zucchini.

How to process tomatoes

The most effective method of controlling caterpillars on tomatoes is through chemical processing. But it should be noted that chemical pesticides are removed from plants in 20 to 30 days. Using these tools, you need to calculate the estimated harvest time. It is better to collect brown tomatoes before processing and put on ripening in another place.

Important!
When working with insecticides in a greenhouse, it is necessary to act strictly according to the instructions, because chemicals remain in the ground for a long time, accumulate and absorb in tomatoes.

To combat scoops on tomatoes, it is better to choose drugs that affect both butterflies and caterpillars at the same time. Such funds include:

  • Inta-Vir. Substances in its composition scare away butterflies, affect caterpillars at any stage of their development. Apply only in the presence of pests, for prophylaxis is not suitable;
  • "Decis" - acts quickly, is not phytotoxic to the plant. Protects tomatoes for 10 - 15 days;
  • "Avant" - resistant to rain, affects the laying of eggs and caterpillars. Cannot be used more than 2 times.

Hazard class 4 insecticides are more quickly eliminated from tomatoes. These are biological substances, these include Lepidocil, Agravertin, Actofit, Fitoverm.

From whiteflies, tomatoes are sprayed with Aktara, Iskra, Mospilan, Admiral and others. These insects develop stable immunity to insecticides, therefore, to combat the next generation, funds should be changed.

Folk remedies

Alternative measures should be applied as soon as the first pest is discovered. With a massive defeat, they may not bring the desired result.

You can scare away a scoop from tomatoes if you spray it with infusion of garlic, wormwood or tobacco dust once a week:

  1. chop the head of garlic or a small bunch of garlic arrows and pour boiling water in a liter jar. Insist 3 days. Half a glass of strained product is added to a bucket of water;
  2. the bucket is filled 1/3 with fresh wormwood, poured with water and simmer for half an hour. Insist 2 days, filter and dilute with water in a ratio of 1:10;
  3. 300 grams of tobacco dust are poured into a bucket of hot water and insisted for a day.

Laundry soap is added to each of these solutions. It is crushed and melted in a small amount of water.For 1 bucket of infusion, 1/3 of the standard bar is enough. Soap makes the composition sticky and keeps it on the tomatoes for a long time. The same solutions can be used to combat whiteflies.

In addition, whiteflies can be washed off with very cold water. In order not to cause shock in the plant, this procedure is carried out in the early morning hours, when the leaves have not yet warmed up in the sun.

Small butterflies die from exposure to soap suds. Green or laundry soap is whipped into a strong foam, and with a sponge applied to the surface of the leaves on both sides. The method is used if the plantation with tomatoes is not very large.

Whiteflies fly to a bright yellow color. If you put a twig near each bush, attach yellow paper to it, on which you apply any sticky means (honey, petroleum jelly, garden glue, oil), then most of the butterflies will easily stick to such a trap.

In the greenhouse, you can use fumigators from flies and mosquitoes, but at the same time the doors and windows must be closed.

Prevention

Against scoops and whiteflies apply the same preventive measures. Their pupae and larvae winter in the soil, so they dig it up for the winter, and lumps of land do not break it. If this year the pest infection was massive, then the topsoil should be removed to a depth of 15 cm and replaced.

Advice!
In the spring, the planting site is shed with boiling water, or a bright pink solution of potassium permanganate.

It is important that the beds are cleared of weeds, and that the plantings are not thickened. Watering tomatoes is carried out under the root. Morning watering is preferable so that by evening the moisture from the soil has time to evaporate.

From the penetration of the scoop into the greenhouse, windows and doors can be protected with mosquito nets or hang a tulle.

Do not neglect preventive measures, treat with folk remedies to scare butterflies. It is likely that then they will not fly to your plantation with tomatoes.

Caterpillars on tomatoes in a greenhouse

A scoop is a nocturnal butterfly that leads a nocturnal lifestyle, but this applies only to adult moths. The name Scoops is due to the specific pattern on the wings. At the caterpillar stage, this insect spends a decent part of its life, about three weeks.

All this time, the caterpillar constantly eats vegetation. Despite the fact that it can eat leaves and shoots, and in the presence of juicy fruits, this pest prefers them. Tomatoes for these caterpillars are a delicacy, so they are happy to eat them.

As a result, the tomatoes deteriorate even before they are picked, and the crop disappears. To understand how to deal with this pest, what means to use for the best effect, let's see what life cycle this unpleasant living creature has.

Adult butterfly

She appears in the summer from a chrysalis overwintering in the soil. Depending on the climate and weather it is May, June or July. At this stage, it is not a pest, because the plants do not eat butterflies, but feed on nectar. The trouble is that they begin to lay their eggs a few days after their birth.

Eggs scoops

An adult butterfly lays eggs immediately on plants, which will then serve as food. As a rule, these are green leaves, but in the case of tomatoes it can be fruits, both green and red tomatoes.

Attention!
One butterfly can lay from 500 to 1000 eggs, from which then these intolerable pests will appear.

The stage of development of eggs in the summer lasts only 2-4 days, in the fall, due to cold snap, the eggs ripen in 7-12 days.

Caterpillars

Actually they eat our crop of tomatoes. Some representatives of the Scoop family at this stage can eat not only the green parts of greenhouse crops or the soft fruits of tomatoes. They are too tough and harder.

Even grain stored in storage can be spoiled by these pests. Their ability to eat green shoots of tomatoes, which are poisonous to other insects, is amazing.

To go to the pupal stage, the caterpillar needs 2 to 4 weeks. And all this time he tirelessly engaged in eating plants.

Dolly Scoops

At this stage, insects do not conduct active life, do not eat plants and do not move, in general, is not a direct pest of greenhouse crops. Pupae develop in soil at a shallow depth of about 5 centimeters. If the caterpillar pupated in summer, then the stage takes 10-15 days, after which a butterfly appears from the pupa and the cycle repeats again.

In one summer, several generations can be born. With the onset of cold weather, the pupa does not develop into a butterfly until the next season, that is, it is at this stage that Scoop wintering.

Important!
Ways to protect crops from these caterpillars are developed taking into account their vital functions and biological characteristics. Among the main and preventive measures, it is necessary to highlight the following activities.

Spraying tomatoes with insecticides at the stage of development of caterpillars. The most common are agents such as Intavir, Citcor, Leptocyte, Bitoxibacillin, Dendrobacillin. It is very important to comply with the processing times indicated in the instructions for these products. Do not process ripened tomatoes.

Regular weeding of the greenhouse. Removing unnecessary plants leads to the fact that the amount of food in these parasites decreases, as does their number. Weeding is necessary not only plants under tomatoes, but also the gaps between the rows.

Harvesting the inedible part of the crop. This is a preventive measure aimed at eliminating pests before they prepare for winter. If we are talking about tomato tops, then it is better to burn it, especially since the green parts of the tomato are unsuitable for composting. To improve the effect, it is better to remove absolutely all plants from the greenhouse, and not just tomato tops.

Autumn plowing after harvesting tomatoes. This action is also preventive in nature and is a common plowing made in the fall, and not in the spring before planting. This leads to the fact that part of the pupae in the soil are on the surface and die. This is especially true in a greenhouse, where the soil is not covered by snow in winter and can freeze well.

Winter watering. This method of controlling pests that eat our tomatoes involves watering the soil with water in the cold season, when all insects are at the pupal stage. Such a procedure has a very bad effect on the survival of pupae, and until spring their number is much smaller. This measure is especially good in combination with the previous one.

Unfortunately, we will learn that pests are planted in a greenhouse with tomatoes, at the stage when preventive measures are impossible to apply, and the time cannot be returned. For this reason, only the use of chemical agents poisoning the tracks remains. It is important to observe safety measures, they must be written in the instructions or on the packaging.

It will be better if you find pests at the stage of ovary or flowering of tomatoes. This will allow you not to spray ripening tomatoes, which are almost ready to eat.

Scoop on tomatoes - how to fight?

Scoop - a pest of tomatoes and not only tomatoes. How often some pests attack the crop. It seems that you take care of the plants, but no, anyway, some bug will find a loophole to feed on your crop. The scoop caterpillar is one of the most common pests, which is also quite difficult to get rid of.

Advice!
Most striking is the fact that the scoop is not very picky in its food and eats almost everything - tomatoes, eggplant, corn, pepper, beans and many other plants. But with special love, she nevertheless gravitates precisely to tomatoes, which suffer from the expression of her love more than all other cultures.

With such a "guest" in your garden you must immediately begin the fight.But let us, before moving on to methods of combating a scoop on tomatoes, take a closer look at the pest itself.

Pest caterpillar

To defeat the enemy, you need to thoroughly study it, find out its strengths and weaknesses, so let's take a closer look at what kind of caterpillars are those that love to enjoy your harvest.

Scoops in the phase of pupae in the soil overwinter, but at the beginning of June butterflies “hatch” from pupae, which literally three days later begin to lay eggs on leaves and stalks of tomatoes or any other cultivated plants.

Caterpillars most often emerge from eggs within three days, but this directly depends on air temperature. What follows is the development of a caterpillar, which usually lasts two to three weeks. During this period, the caterpillars, so to speak, eat everything that catches their eye.

They damage leaves and stems of plants, but tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, the fruits of which caterpillars eat with great appetite, suffer most. The fruits, consumed by the scoop, rot, but even if this fact is not taken into account, the caterpillars cause so much damage to the fruits that eating these vegetables is simply not possible anymore.

The struggle with the scoop on tomatoes and other cultures is hampered by the fact that one generation of caterpillars will soon be replaced by another, and this happens all summer, and also the beginning of autumn.

How to fight?

You are now familiar with the enemy, so all that remains is to learn how to deal with it. As it became clear from our acquaintance, protecting tomatoes from a scoop is quite complicated, since getting rid of this pest is still very difficult due to the fact that there are a lot of caterpillars and they multiply quickly.

Attention!
In addition, the fact that the caterpillars crawl out to "hunt" at night, and during the day they hide in the ground near the plants, is extremely inconvenient. This is due to the fact that scoops are generally night butterflies.

In general, in the fight against these pests, it is necessary to connect “heavy artillery” - chemical treatments from pests. So, what to process tomatoes from a scoop?

If during the inspection of your beds you find eggs or caterpillars of scoops among tomatoes, then spray the plant with one of these means - Citcor, Decis, Spark, etc.

You can ask about products suitable for processing tomatoes from a scoop in a store where you can be advised which drug is better to choose. A week after the first spraying, it is necessary to carry out secondary treatment.

In addition to such radical remedies, there are also preventive measures that it is desirable to observe. Always remove weeds from the site to reduce feed for pests.

In autumn, it is imperative to destroy everything that was damaged by the scoop, as well as carefully dig the soil to reduce the number of pupae wintering in it.

Effective processing methods and techniques

The scoop butterfly is a polyphagous pest, there are about 100 varieties of them. Appearing on a suburban area and damaging plants, they cause a lot of trouble to gardeners.

Important!
There are various ways and methods of controlling pests (larvae, caterpillars and scoops). Having spent a lot of time and effort in growing seedlings and further care for tomatoes in the greenhouse, it is very annoying to find holes in tomatoes.

Who hurts and how to deal with it? And adult scoops do this, making huge holes in tomatoes and eating up the pulp from the inside.

What does it look like

Outwardly, the scoop is a rather plain-looking butterfly, which has little resemblance to a moth. It lays eggs on the back of the leaf, for this reason it is very difficult to notice the newly hatched larvae.

Caterpillars are born after 3 days. The color depends on the species, they are gray-green, green or dark brown in color with wavy lines on the sides of the body and light stripes. The body is covered with hairs. In the next 22 days, development into an adult occurs.

Varieties

There are a large number of scoops, the most famous of them:

  • Cabbage scoop, which harms Pancake week, fruit, leguminous and vegetable crops.
  • Garden scoop, affecting cabbage, rutabaga, tomatoes, legumes.
  • Winter scoop that damages field cereal plants.
  • Pine scoop. It harms coniferous plants.
  • Gamma scoop propagates where flax, potatoes, beets, corn and legumes are grown.

How to deal with pests in the garden?

To counter the scoop, various methods are used that depend on its condition: larva, caterpillar, butterfly.

In order to fight scoops, it is necessary to hang containers with a smell of pheromones, molasses or fermented kvass at a meter height.

To combat caterpillars and larvae you need:

  • In the last month of autumn, dig up the whole earth, as they winter in the soil. As a result, a significant proportion of pests will die. At the beginning of the new season, it is also recommended to dig up the soil in order to reduce the number of overwintered insects.
  • Manually collect larvae.
  • Thoroughly destroy flowering weeds, as scoops feed on nectar, and its lack leads to weakening of the individual.
  • Observe the alternation of planting of different plant crops.
  • It is necessary to remove weeds, as they serve as the initial feed base.
  • Spray with insecticides one month before harvesting.

In the spring, apply "Decis", "Karate", "Fury"; and in the summer season “Fufanon”, “Zolon”, “Danadim”. Apply them according to the instructions, carry out no more than 2 treatments per year. Spray with biological products, for example, "Agrovertinom", "Aktofitom", "Fitoverm."

Fight: General Rules

Caterpillars on tomatoes in a greenhouse: how to deal with them? To combat it is necessary to apply an integrated approach, which contains the following measures:

  1. In the spring, constantly destroy weeds. This will help reduce the number of larvae and butterflies.
  2. Inspect greenhouses regularly, especially during flowering.
  3. Spray with chemicals "Spark", "Leptocide." Repeat spraying after a week, since the caterpillars are not born all at once. Further, only biological substances can be used, because the period of ripening and harvesting does not tolerate chemicals. Repeat the treatment 2-3 times.
  4. Do not allow the caterpillar to form to large sizes.
  5. In the autumn period, it is necessary to destroy all the remains of plants that have been damaged by the caterpillar, and dig a bed.
  6. In the summer season, it is recommended to loosen the soil from time to time.

Folk remedies

If caterpillars appeared on tomatoes in a greenhouse, how to deal with folk remedies? If you later saw that caterpillars wound up in tomatoes, then you can no longer use chemical agents.

Vegetable growers recommend the following methods of processing plants with infusions:

  • Of the herbs. To prepare the infusion, you need 10 liters of hot water, to which you need to add 400 g of celandine, tobacco, wormwood and 200 g of garlic. After 24 hours add 40 grams of soap.
  • From wormwood. In 3 l of water add 1 kg of wormwood, then boil for 15 minutes. Treat the plants twice, then a week break and you can repeat the procedure.
  • From burdocks. Cut half a bucket of burdock leaves, then fill with water and insist for 3 days.
  • Saline can be sprayed with tomatoes directly on the plant.

The following products are used to process tomatoes from pests.

  • Thoroughly mix lime, wood ash and tobacco powder in equal proportions and pollinate the affected plants.
  • Pour 2 cups of ash into a container of cold water and pour 2 small tablespoons of liquid soap. The resulting solution is sprayed with plants.
  • Processing plants with a solution of potassium permanganate is very beneficial, firstly, it helps in counteracting scoops, secondly, fertilizer, and thirdly, it is a tool that disinfects and kills bacteria and viruses.To process seedlings, pour a glass of saturated potassium permanganate solution into a bucket filled with water, and mix everything thoroughly.
  • Dilute 5 g of potassium and 10 g of superphosphate in a bucket of water, insist for 24 hours. Apply several times with an interval of 8 days, up to 3 times per season. In addition, this solution can help against aphids.
  • In 1 liter of hot water add 400 grams of laundry soap, then carefully pour 800 ml of kerosene and add 9 liters of water. Mix everything and use it instantly for processing.

Grower Tips

Caterpillars on tomatoes in a greenhouse: how to deal with them with the help of experienced gardeners? Caterpillar lures, scoops are made from sweet drinks, syrups, kvass, beer, juices that can ferment. Place the bait in small jars. It is necessary to remove the tracks that have fallen on the bait.

Advice!
To scare away butterflies, an egg shell is used, which is laid out between the plants. Birds, especially tits and sparrows, like to feast on larvae and caterpillars, they will help reduce the number of pests. For birds, you can hang feeders.

Plant cilantro and basil near the tomatoes, the scoops do not tolerate the aroma of these herbs, so they will fly around your planting.

Biological methods

Caterpillars on tomatoes in a greenhouse: how to deal with biological methods? To destroy pests, trichograms can be used - these are small insects that lay eggs inside the eggs of a butterfly scoop. This method is used twice a season.

Significant benefits come from insect riders, whose females inject a toxin into the caterpillar by puncture, which stops digestion and leads to its death.

Caterpillars on tomatoes in the greenhouse, the reasons for their appearance directly depend on their timely detection. It is not always possible to establish the time of occurrence of pests in order to determine the timing of the start of processing.

In case of untimely spraying, the treatment will not give any result. To establish a massive invasion of insects is possible thanks to pheromone traps.

How to deal with a scoop, or who makes holes in tomatoes

Interestingly, pests have noticeably changing tastes. So, Colorado in recent years has begun to avoid planting tomatoes and even eggplant.

At one time, the biggest concern on tomato plots was potato aphids. Now the main enemy of tomatoes has become a cotton scoop, making holes in the fruit.

Attention!
Moreover, the caterpillars themselves act like real partisans - they eat fruits at night, and in the morning they hide in the soil at the base of the bushes, where they can be found by carefully raking the soil.

This tactic explains the huge harm - one caterpillar can perforate almost all the fruits on the bush, which immediately rot!

Wide orientation

What was the “change of orientation” of this scoop is hard to say. Another thing is that her caterpillars do not have much choice: the appearance of butterflies coincides with the flowering of tomatoes, and the caterpillars come out just when a green ovary appears, which will hastily begin to ripen as soon as holes are made in it.

However, the cotton scoop is a real indivisible pest. He eats more than 120 types of crops: in addition to tomatoes and cotton - pepper, eggplant, beans, sunflower, even tobacco and many others. This year, caterpillars scoops tried to eat corn cobs, despite its frequent processing.

In particular, they processed it from a bug, which stuck around the panicles and spoiled the stigmas of the ears.

But then, during the collection, they also found many caterpillars, which, from the side of the stigmas, nibbled on the cobs, but, having not reached the grain, died from the action of the Regent and Confidor.

Why not defeat her

To understand how to deal with a pest, you need to know its biology. Overwintering scoop in soil in the pupal phase. In early June, butterflies hatch from pupae, which after 3-4 days lay a spread of pale yellow eggs on leaves, stems and other parts of tomatoes or other cultivated plants.

Important!
Depending on the temperature, the tracks can spawn on the third day. The development of the caterpillar lasts from 13 to 22 days. First, they damage leaves, buds, flowers. Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants are especially harmful, invading their fruits.

In beans - eat leaves and seeds in beans, in corn - ears. It is difficult to fight that usually the flight of butterflies of a cotton scoop is extended for a month or more. Therefore, the appearance of one generation in the future is superimposed on another, and summer continues without a break until October - until the frosts beat the tomatoes.

How to deal with a scoop

  • Starting from spring, weeds must be regularly eradicated in order to reduce the nutritional base of butterflies and caterpillars.
  • Observe the timing of chemical treatments: examine the beds with tomatoes during the period of mass flowering and at the beginning of fruit setting; if eggs or caterpillars are found, spray one of the preparations: Citcor, Decis, Inta-Vir, Spark, Leptocide, Kinmix, Confidor.
  • Be sure to repeat spraying with one of the above insecticides after 7 days, since the hatching period is stretched for the caterpillars, and the waiting time must be observed.
  • During the period of ripening and harvesting, only biological preparations can and should be used. Carry out at least two to three treatments at weekly intervals.
  • Remember that the caterpillar is easy to destroy with drugs at a young age. When she waves up to five centimeters and more, it is not so easy to take her with poisons.
  • Be sure to destroy all plant debris and fruits damaged by the cotton scoop in the fall, dig well the area occupied by the nightshade crops in order to reduce the number of wintering pupae. In the summer, be sure to carry out loosening, preferably a cultivator between the rows - so destroy the many hidden "partisans".

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