How to deal with aphids on cucumbers in a greenhouse by means safe for humans and vegetables

how to deal with aphids on cucumbers in a greenhouse
How to deal with aphids on cucumbers in a greenhouse

Hello! Do not convey in words the degree of my frustration last spring.

I made myself a greenhouse, planted cucumbers, in my thoughts I was already happy about the upcoming harvest of crunchy goodies. Well, well, naive. A few days of my absence led to sad consequences.

In the greenhouse aphids actively “worked”. In time, I did not find it and paid for it with a lost crop of cucumbers. Now I already know what to do with these pests, and in the spring ... Want to know how to deal with aphids on cucumbers in a greenhouse? I'll sign it all now, so that you are not in my position.

Aphids on cucumbers: how to deal with it in a country greenhouse

In the spring, plantations of cucumbers in the greenhouse cause a great deal of damage to aphids. Aphids on cucumbers in a greenhouse: how to deal with pests correctly, so as not to lose the crop?

Types of pests

Almost 1000 species of aphids known to science live on European territory. These pests not only suck out the juice from plants, but also spread diseases, especially viral ones, for which there is no cure. Pathological growths on various organs of the plant (galls) are formed after the defeat of plant aphids.

Aphid. Adult
Aphid. Adult

All aphids reach a small size - just a few millimeters. The body of the aphid is painted in various colors: pests with straw color are found, black, green, the color of branches and leaves. The pest has a proboscis, which is fully adapted to pierce leaf blades to suck out juices.

Important!
Having settled on plants in a greenhouse, aphid colonies can irreparably damage cucumber lashes in a short time. Leaves become stale, sagging. The plant ceases to develop, blossom and bear fruit.

The pest secretes sugary juice, the so-called "pad", which pollutes and glues cucumber leaves. Other pests of vegetables also gather on sugar aphids.

If ants appeared in the greenhouse, then aphids will certainly appear. Especially attracts the fall of ants, who live in symbiosis with aphids, and are ready to "milk" it around the clock, waiting for sweets.

Ants take on the role of aphid protector, transfer the pest to new areas, infecting all plants around. It comes to the fact that ants provide aphids in their own anthill in winter.

At the first signs of pests in a greenhouse with cucumbers, it is necessary to immediately begin the comprehensive destruction of aphids and ants.

Aphids has two phases of development - wingless and winged. Flightless individuals ensure the reproduction of the colony, an increase in the number of new pests. Pests in the winged phase move at sufficient distances, where they find new objects for food.

It is useful to let out ladybirds into a greenhouse infected with aphids.A ladybug, released into a cucumber greenhouse, is capable of destroying up to 50 aphids per day. At the stage of a voracious larva, a ladybug during the period of its existence is able to destroy up to 800 pieces of the pest.

Aphids and other insects feed: gall midges, lacewings, aphidiuses, lysiflebuses. These insects can be used to kill aphids in closed greenhouse areas.

Preventive measures to prevent the propagation of pests

To ensure the development of healthy plants in the greenhouse helps qualified and timely care of cucumbers. Agrotechnical measures for growing cucumbers in closed ground help to collect an excellent crop of vegetables from healthy plants.

Advice!
Properly organized watering of cucumber bushes with warm water (23-25 ​​° C) helps prevent the spread of pests in the greenhouse. When lowering the outdoor temperature, watering cucumbers in the greenhouse needs to be reduced.

Before planting seedlings in greenhouses, greenhouse areas should be carefully treated from pests. Caustic soda or bleach are used for this purpose. Dense whiten racks and cover greenhouses. Periodically, a sulfur block should be used for prophylactic insect repellents.

It is required to carefully examine the plantings of cucumbers weekly, this will allow you to notice the appearance of pests at an early stage and start a timely fight with them.

A spike in aphid breeding is seen in greenhouses with thickened plantings and poor ventilation. It is necessary to provide cucumbers with a constant flow of fresh air for better growth and development.

Weakened and depleted plants to a lesser extent can resist infection by pests, therefore, in greenhouses with cucumbers it is required to carry out uniform irrigation and fertilize plants in a timely manner.

To prevent infection of plantations of cucumber aphids, leaf mustard and dill should be planted next to cucumber beds, the favorite plants of ladybirds that eagerly eat aphids.

Folk methods of struggle

Preventive techniques that are used to protect planted cucumbers from aphids are designed to prevent or control the appearance and reproduction of pests. But these measures are not always successful in achieving a positive result. Despite all the measures taken, aphids can fill the greenhouse in a matter of days.

Pest control can be carried out in two ways: chemical or folk remedies. Both methods have their pros and cons. Chemical treatment of cucumbers in closed ground gives faster and more effective results, but the accumulation of harmful substances occurs in the fruits themselves.

Attention!
To begin with, you can try to get rid of aphids on cucumber bushes with the help of folk remedies, since there are many recipes for this.

Perfectly helps get rid of aphids in the greenhouse infusion of celandine. 0.3 kg of dried and ground grass is insisted in 1 bucket of water for 24 hours. Ready infusion is sprayed with cucumber plantings on green mass.

An infusion of 0.5 kg of chopped garlic cloves, added to 3 liters of water, takes a long time to prepare - 5 days. Natural raw materials do not harm the crop and effectively cope with the destruction of aphids.

Ash helps gardeners in many cases. The infusion of wood ash and laundry soap will save cucumbers from the invasion of aphids. It is required to properly prepare an ash-soap solution: take 10 liters of water: 2 tbsp. l ash and a bar of laundry soap grated on a coarse grater.

After dissolving soap chips, the solution is recommended for spraying greenhouses from aphids.

It is practiced to spray plantings of cucumbers in the greenhouse with soapy solutions that do not harm plants. 0.3 kg of laundry soap is diluted in 10 l of water until completely dissolved. The second version of the soap solution involves the use of tar soap: a piece of soap weighing 0.1 kg is flattened, diluted in 10 liters of water.

Dandelion infusion: 0.6 kg of dandelion leaves and 0.4 kg of chopped flower roots are poured with a bucket of water and insisted for 3 hours. Cucumbers are sprayed with a solution, trying to get on all parts of the plant, especially under the leaves.

Based on this recipe, they make similar tinctures from wormwood, tops of tomatoes and potatoes, hot peppers, garlic.

Spraying is carried out periodically throughout the season, until the cucumber plants are destroyed. This helps to inhibit the growth of aphid colonies, but even a short break in treatments can cause the rapid reproduction of insects and the death of cucumber lashes.

Chemical way to fight

If folk remedies do not help, then refer to chemical preparations.

It is allowed to use chemical agents to control aphids on cucumbers in cases where the pest has multiplied in large quantities, and there is a real threat of plant death.

Important!
Chemicals guarantee high results for the destruction of pests, but non-compliance with the rules for the use of the drug can lead to poisoning.

The most effective drugs for aphids on cucumbers in sheltered ground: Decis; Inta-Vir; Kinmix "Arrivo." The dilution of these preparations is carried out according to the instructions attached by the manufacturer. It is required to comply with the timing of fruit collection after the last treatment.

Once again about ants

Any manipulations on processing greenhouse areas from aphids by folk remedies will not achieve the goal if you do not destroy the ants that spread the aphids and multiply the infection.

There are a number of chemicals for exterminating ants that effectively help gardeners get rid of insects: “Thunder”; "Masha"; "Ant-eater"; "Absolute".

Along with anti-aphid remedies, do not forget to use drugs after forgiving ants.

The use of chemicals should be combined with constant loosening of the soil in the greenhouse. The underground passages of the ant labyrinth crumble when the soil is loosened. Insects are busy constantly restoring their communications.

The entrances to the anthills can be bombarded with: ground bitter pepper, mustard powder, ash, nitrate, lime. A solution of lime (100 g per 1 bucket of water) can fill the entrance to the ant dwelling.

Good results are obtained by repelling insects with herbs: parsley, basil, mint, lemon balm, wormwood. It helps in the fight against ants garlic or garlic infusion.

Aphids on cucumbers in a greenhouse: how to fight

Aphids are small green, black, or yellowish insects. Settling on the underside of a cucumber leaf, it sucks organic matter from it. It develops very quickly (up to 20 generations per season) and is able to destroy the entire crop of cucumbers.

Advice!
Its mass settlement cannot be allowed, otherwise the struggle will be difficult. Its females and larvae remain in the greenhouse for the winter as well, therefore, if preventive work is done on time, it is possible that aphids will never appear in the greenhouse.

If you do not fight aphids, very quickly it will hit all the crops in the greenhouse. The following activities are effective:

Fumigation of the greenhouse with sulfur smoke bombs at the rate of 50 g per square meter. m. It is recommended to do this in greenhouses with a wooden frame with good sealing. Sulfur anhydride has a destructive effect on the metal.

Disinfection of the greenhouse by treating the entire interior space and inventory with bleach, dissolving 400 g in 10 l of water. When the solution is infused, drain the liquid and use for spraying, and with a brush, coat the racks and other greenhouse structures with a brush.

Caustic soda is also suitable for this purpose - about 0.5 kg per bucket of water. Disinfection using a mixture of formalin (40%) and any insecticide and acaricide.

Improving the ability of cucumbers to resist pests. Why monitor the temperature - at night it should not be below 18 degrees C, and at night - rise above 28.The thermometer column rises especially high in hot summers in glazed greenhouses, therefore, to optimize the temperature, chalk the south side with chalk.

The humidity indicator is also important - nightly from 85 to 90%, and daytime - from 75 to 80%, as well as meeting the planting dates, timely fertilizer application, ventilation.

The extermination of ants, as the main aphid carriers, feeding on its vital product - “milk”. If a colony of ants penetrated the greenhouse, then you can use crayons that serve to destroy cockroaches, "Antimuravin" or other chemistry.

Attention!
Planting along the edge of a bed of plants that repel aphids, such as basil.

Do not forget about the toxicity of sulfur dioxide - wear a gas mask or at least a respirator during the procedure.

If, despite prevention, aphid colonies are still besieged by greenhouse cucumbers, then other methods will have to be combated. The main thing is to prevent this pest from draining the plants as much as possible, so that the leaves curl and die. There are 3 known methods of killing aphids.

Mechanical method

Reception works when the infection is not strong. Pests are removed manually - when inspected, the plants break off the leaves along with the accumulation of aphids and burn them. Cucumber bushes are then poured from the hose under high pressure.

If only parts of the plant are affected, simply remove them.

Using chemical methods

When the aphid has already firmly established itself in the greenhouse, having created large colonies, it is necessary to resort to chemistry in the fight against it. The foliar top dressing of cucumbers is gently affected by a phosphorus-potassium solution - superphosphate 20 g, potassium chloride half as much per bucket of water.

With a mixture, spray the leaves from below, repeat the treatment after a week. Such a procedure will help get rid of aphids, and from its constant companions - ants.

There are biological products that do not destroy aphids, but cause infection with its diseases as a result of which it dies within a week or a half. These drugs are safe, but give good results and do not destroy the beneficial insects that live in greenhouses. Such funds include:

  • Ethnobacterin;
  • Arrow;
  • Fitoverm;
  • Peretrum;
  • Akarin.

When a pest occupies large areas, chemical preparations can no longer be dispensed with.

Important!
Chemical substances such as Intavir, Sharpei, Arrivo, Kinmiks, Decis, Karbofos quickly destroy aphid eggs, but such treatments must be stopped a month before harvesting.

Different types of aphids respond differently to poisons, so you should not treat all plantings with one drug at once. First try out the purchased product in a small area.

Fight without chemistry

Supporters of organic farming, who do not use chemistry in principle, have learned to use all kinds of tools made on the basis of natural components. They act effectively, and finding them is worthless.

In addition, they do not have the side effects characteristic of synthetic pesticides. Rapidly decomposing, they are not collected in soil and plants, for humans and the environment are completely harmless. The following infusions well destroy aphids:

  1. Garlic - finely chop 500 g of garlic, place in a 3-liter container, add water, stand for 5 days, dilute 60 g of infusion in water (10 l) and pour cucumbers from the spray bottle.
  2. Still garlic - garlic is ground, placed in a bottle, add the same amount of water, tightly closed, kept for about 10 days. When spraying, add 25 ml of the product to a bucket of water.
  3. From garlic husk - 150 g is poured into a 10 liter bucket of water, kept for 24 hours, then immediately used.
  4. From celandine - take 300 g of dried leaf, insist in 10 l of water for 2 days.
  5. From dandelion - fresh roots (400 g) and leaves (600 g) are finely chopped, filled with 10 l of water, insisted for 3 hours.
  6. Soapy with wood ash - in a bucket of water mixed with 2 large tablespoons of wood ash, rub the laundry soap, mix until the last component dissolves.
  7. Tobacco - mix it with 1 liter of boiling water, throw 10 g of soap there, insist for a day.
  8. Coniferous extract - 1 glass is dissolved in a bucket of water and 3 tablespoons of liquid soap are added.

In general, other sharp plants - burning pepper, wormwood, tomato, potato tops, etc., are allowed to insist and apply in the fight against aphids on cucumbers in the greenhouse, but you need to spray often.

After a single treatment, the pest does not disappear completely and after the cessation for a while, it multiplies and multiplies its settlements.

As additional measures, if the area allows, you can plant dill or leaf mustard next to cucumbers. These plants adore ladybugs. Collect them on the site and run into the greenhouse, settling on their favorite plants, they will also eat aphids.

5 rules for pest control

When there are a lot of aphids, folk remedies may not be very effective. To avoid wasting time, follow these 5 rules:

  • proceed with the treatment of cucumber plantations while the aphids are still not very many;
  • use them freshly prepared, as the toxicity of infusions and decoctions does not last long;
  • treat cucumbers in the greenhouse in the evening: the products lose their toxicity under the influence of ultraviolet radiation;
  • do not use the remedies when the flowering period begins, so as not to destroy along with pests and pollinating insects;
  • Observe precautions even when using plant insecticides. Be sure to wash your hands and face after spraying.

Follow agricultural practices and your crops will be protected from pest attacks.

Do not become discouraged at the first failure. Carry out preventive measures, look for and try out effective methods, do not allow ants to populate the greenhouse, in severe cases, take on arms chemistry and you will definitely get rid of aphids.

How to defeat the enemy

The aphid is a tiny and completely harmless at first glance insect. However, the innocent appearance of this microscopic booger is deceptive, since in fact it is a difficult to destroy malicious phytophage that feeds on the vital juices of plants.

Aphids on cucumbers in a greenhouse in a short time can destroy a fair share of the crop, but if you know how to deal with this dangerous parasite and use the right product in time, you can save most of the vegetables.

What is dangerous

Having hardly penetrated the greenhouse, the aphid spreads along it at the speed of a forest fire, settles on the leaves of vegetables and immediately begins to suck out the juices from them. In the case of a massive attack of parasites, plantings can die in one week.

Advice!
In order to prevent this and to take timely measures to destroy pests, the gardener needs to periodically inspect the greenhouse stands and study in advance how to get rid of aphids in case of its appearance.

The term "aphid" does not mean a single species of sucking insects, but a huge, composed of 10 families, a superfamily of the order of half-winged, which includes more than 4 thousand species of parasites feeding on plant juices.

All members of the family are small (length 1.3–4, maximum 7 mm), often translucent, painted mainly with pale yellow or green insects. Any type of these pests has wingless and winged forms of development.

The main part of the population consists of wingless flukes, represented exclusively by ovoviviparous female individuals. Under certain conditions, winged virgin females and heterosexual insects that breed in the classical way are born in pest colonies.

Development cycle

The life cycle of parasites begins in early spring.At this time, larvae emerge from the eggs that have wintered on the host weed and immediately begin to actively eat juices of young shoots of cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and other crops.

After molting, the calving progenitor larvae turn into adult wingless females, which, through parthenogenetic reproduction, give the first generation of the same, virgin, wingless females.

After the change of 3-6 generations of wingless individuals in the colony, winged female settlers are born. They scatter around, land on garden crops and form new metropolises on them.

Each winged female becomes the ancestor of another one and a half to two dozen generations of wingless virgin insects that feed on the juices of "sheltered" their cultivated plants.

In autumn, female strips appear in newly formed settlements asexually propagating parasites. These winged individuals fly over perennial weeds and reproduce on them the generation of normal females and males.

They mate, after which the fertilized aphids lay eggs on the stem of the host plant. This completes the one-year pest life cycle.

Types of Greenhouse Aphids

Being very voracious phytophages, aphids are very picky in food, and rarely some of them feed on plants belonging to different families. Most species of these parasites are adapted to digest only one specific type of food.

Attention!
So in the diet of apple aphids include only fruit seeds, and cereal is saturated exclusively with juices of wheat, millet, rye and oats.

Due to such food selectivity in greenhouses (where cucumbers, peppers, eggplant and tomatoes are usually grown), only four aphid species settle:

  • potato - preferring tomatoes, eggplant and peppers, but in case of their absence, ready to eat salad, cucumbers and other greens;
  • melon - one of the most harmful, parasitic on cucumbers, zucchini, melons, peanuts and citrus fruits;
  • greenhouse - omnivorous, not squeamish about any garden vegetation;
  • large potato - specializing in eating members of the nightshade family.

Reasons for the appearance

Dangerous aphids in cucumbers in a greenhouse can appear for various reasons, but most often the ants are to blame.

Regardless of food cravings, all species eat the same way - they pierce the leaf epidermis with a proboscis and suck out juices rich in amino acids and carbohydrates from it. The final digestion product of the parasites is the copper pad. This thick, containing sugar, gum and protein proteins, ants love to regale.

Over millions of years of coexistence with parasites, bitten sweet tooths have adapted to “milk” aphids and become real pastoralists. They protect their “cows”, protect them from predators, shelter them in warm anthills for the winter, and in the spring they take them out to graze on the youngest and most juicy shoots.

Gourd aphids on cucumbers
Gourd aphids on cucumbers

It is on the backs of shepherd ants that the pest, as a rule, enters the greenhouse. Therefore, with the goal of lime aphid in a greenhouse, you first need to completely destroy its small patrons.

However, the enemy can enter the greenhouse without the help of garden ants, for example:

  1. fly into the room through doors or ventilation holes;
  2. “Call in” to the construction in a pile of poorly rotted compost;
  3. get into the structure along with infected substrate, seedlings or cuttings.

Sucking juices from leaf plates and young shoots, the aphid drains cucumbers and tomatoes and weakens their immunity. Affected vegetable bushes stop growing, get sick, and sometimes even die.

Important!
But the aphid that has been established in the greenhouse is dangerous not only because of its parasitism. A microscopic pest carries and transmits phytopathogenic viruses to plants, causing various abnormalities in the development of vegetative organs.

In addition, the dense, sticky pad secreted by the parasites clogs the stomata of the leaf plates, as a result of which the respiration of cucumbers and other plants is disturbed and the process of photosynthesis is inhibited.

Larval skins of molted aphids stick to the sweet drops of "honey dew", and pathogenic soot fungi that mutilate fruits and leaves actively propagate on such a nutritious protein-carbohydrate medium.

The appearance of aphids on cucumbers and tomatoes is signaled by:

  • shiny sticky spots on the leaves;
  • deformed tops of young shoots;
  • twisted leafy shoots;
  • garden ants constantly scurrying along the stems.

Choosing how to treat the aphids that started in the greenhouse on tomatoes and cucumbers, one should proceed from the degree of infection of the plantations. The use of potent systemic poisons for fighting is justified only with the total population of the bush with this parasite.

In all other cases, to get rid of it should be limited to multiple sprayings of vegetables with any insecticidal phytonodact.

The right technique for growing greenhouse cucumbers and fighting aphids

Aphids in a greenhouse on cucumbers and tomatoes can destroy a significant portion of the crop. To prevent infection of the greenhouse with such a dangerous parasite:

When purchasing seedlings, carefully inspect it for pests, suspicious specimens are quarantined.

Follow the rules of agricultural technology, maintain the desired temperature and humidity in the greenhouse. Failure to comply with these requirements will cause plants to weaken and become easy prey for parasites.

Choose the most unpretentious, complexly resistant varieties of cucumbers and other crops for indoor cultivation.

Destroy all weeds on the site and the territory adjacent to it, since it is on their stems that the larvae - the founders of the colonies - winter.
Do not plant mallow, nasturtiums, poppies, chrysanthemums and sunflowers near the greenhouses, which are real nurseries.

Replace or disinfect the soil on the beds with malathion, Bordeaux liquid, or lime annually in mid-autumn. At the same time, disinfect the room itself with a sulfur checker.

Advice!
Three times a season with a frequency of 20 days (from the day the seedlings are planted until mid-July), for preventive purposes, sprinkle abundantly the greenhouse plantings with the Fitoverma working solution, prepared at the rate of: 1 ampoule of a biological product for 6 glasses of water.

Hatch all garden ants on the site, which are the main aphid carriers. To do this, dig deeply the discovered anthills, generously sprinkle them with lime, baking soda or ash and pour boiling water.

In addition to household tools, ants are effectively destroyed by the special preparation “Thunder-2”. Remove a thin layer of soil from the ant "house", sprinkle the exposed passages with granules of this product and cover them with earth - in three days the ants will die.

Phosphorus-Potash Fertilizers

Regular top dressing increases the resistance of plants and increase their ability to regenerate tissues. However, excessive application of nitrogen fertilizers gives the opposite effect. Vegetables overfed with nitrates “grow fat” - they constantly form new leaves and shoots, and such a young juicy vegetative mass especially attracts aphids.

Potassium-phosphorus top dressing, on the contrary, “coarsens” the leaves and promotes the production of specific nutrients in them that increase the osmotic pressure of cell juice, as a result of which cucumbers become inedible for sucking pests.

To prevent spread in the fall, when preparing the greenhouse, apply dry phosphorus-potassium complexes to the soil. During the growing season, spray the aerial parts with a solution prepared from a bucket of water, a teaspoon of potassium chloride and a tablespoon of granular superphosphate.

Pest control without chemistry

It is possible to deal with greenhouse aphids using environmentally friendly, but rather effective agrotechnical methods.

Plant some bait plants inside the greenhouse, the taste of which aphids like more than the taste of tomatoes, eggplant and cucumbers. For example: dill, beans, all types of sow thistle and specially designed for eating by pests, younger than the main plantations, specimens of cucumber bushes.

Attention!
Inspect baits daily and if parasites are found on them, tear them up and destroy them outside the boundaries of the site.

Try to lure aphids into the greenhouse of natural enemies - lacewings, earwigs, wasps, female flies and ladybugs. Collect the latter, the most active parasite eaters, in the box where you can see, and then bring them to the greenhouse and let them out.

To lure all the other flying predators, plant fennel, dill and coriander in the greenhouse. For shy, light-fearing earwigs, build “houses” - pour small heaps of sawdust onto the ground and spray them with water.

Create barriers around the greenhouses with tomatoes and cucumbers from repelling flowers and herbs - basil, marigolds, mint, cilantro, mustard. Plant the same plants between the vegetable beds.

Chemical processing of the greenhouse

Due to the short growing cycle of vegetable crops, it is extremely undesirable to spray them with systemic insecticides, since most of these funds are slowly decomposing poisons.

Powerful synthetic drugs are an extreme measure in the fight against aphids. They are really capable of killing pests in a few hours, but toxic components will be present for a long time in the soil and treated plants, which will make the vegetables unsuitable for eating.

Therefore, looking for how to process cucumbers from aphids, first of all, carefully assess the degree of their defeat.

Use "heavy artillery" only when numerous large colonies have populated more than a quarter of greenhouse plants.

The range of chemicals for killing aphids is great and every year several new insecticides are added to it. Despite such an abundance of brands, the active basis of all these funds are substances of only three types:

  • neonicotinoids (preparations "Vector", "Tanrek", "Confidor", "Ratibor", "Mospilan", "Bombardir", "Dantop");
  • organophosphorus compounds (insecticides "Nurel D", "Actellik", "Dursban");
  • pyrethroids (drugs "Kinmix", "Arrivo", "Sherpa", "Fury", "Decis").

Due to the fact that the waiting period after using the first type of funds is 3 weeks, and the second and third - at least 14 days, they can be used only before flowering.

Before you get rid of aphids in the greenhouse using any of the above insecticides, carefully study the instructions, find out the acceptable processing time and weigh the risks of using the drug.

Important!
When deciding to use the product, carefully follow the rules for its preparation and strictly adhere to the recommended consumption rates.

If the cultures have already formed an ovary, to destroy the aphids, fumigate the greenhouse with a tobacco saber. The smoke emitted by it contains nicotine, which is detrimental to parasites and does not harm plantings.

Folk methods

If colonies of malicious parasites are few in order to remove aphids from the greenhouse, it is most advisable to use folk remedies.

Water treatments. Arrange cucumbers "bathing day." Put a shower head with a pressure regulator on the watering hose and bathe the plants early in the morning. Hold the affected leaves and wash their backs with jets of water.

Water coming under pressure will wash away the parasites, and they will fall to the ground. To prevent them from crawling back into the bush, after bathing, ground the ground with crushed ash.

Soap solution. Grind on a fine-grained grater a large bar of laundry soap 72% (or a 100 gram piece of tar soap). Dissolve the chips in five liters of water heated to 60-70 degrees.

When the soapy water has cooled, spray the infected plants with it.In this case, pay special attention to the inside of the leaves, since it is there that the pests live.

Onion infusion. Pour boiling water over half a bucket of dry onion husks. Cover the bucket and expose it to the sun. After a day, strain the infusion, bring its volume to 10 liters with water. Pour the working solution into the tank of the sprayer and treat it with cucumbers and the ground under them.

Advice!
Garlic-dandelion tincture. Finely chop 500 g of dandelions (with roots, but without flowers) and three large heads of garlic. Combine both masses in one bucket, and fill it with water heated in the greenhouse. After a couple of hours, strain the infusion and spray them with infected bushes.

Pepper broth. Chop a kilogram of hot pepper, pour it with three liters of water and boil for an hour. Put the pan with caustic broth in a secluded place and do not open for two days.

Strain the infusion, pour it into bottles of dark glass, seal them tightly and put them in the refrigerator. When aphids appear on cucumbers, dilute half a glass of pepper concentrate with five liters of water and spray solution of cucumber bushes infected with parasites.

If you find aphids on cucumbers, do not rush to treat them with potent pesticides, as these products will not only pests, but also beneficial insects in the greenhouse. In addition, vegetables sprayed with systemic insecticides will become toxic, and there will be no use against them.

Until the colony has bred in the greenhouse, use biologically safe mechanical and folk methods to destroy it. Pest control in this case will stretch for several weeks, but the result of such a long “battle for the harvest” will be environmentally friendly cucumbers and tomatoes.

Watch a selection of videos with tips on how to deal with aphids on cucumbers in a greenhouse, experienced vegetable growers clearly demonstrate the preparation of various folk remedies and how to use them.

Of course, combating aphids with such products is not as effective as pesticides, but it gives excellent results in the early stages of infection of vegetable crops.

Aphids on cucumbers in a greenhouse how to fight

A large misfortune of gardeners in greenhouses remains aphids on cucumbers, which have to be fought with both chemical and biological methods. Let's see why this insect is dangerous for the plant, and what methods for removing cucumber parasite exist.

What is dangerous?

Melon or cotton aphid of green (with various shades) or dark, almost black color settles on cucumbers. The insect is small in size (up to 2 cm), but unusually prolific and voracious.

Important!
Females survive in winter in the wingless phase and larvae under the root leaves of weeds. As soon as in spring the surrounding area warms up to 5 degrees Celsius, the aphids “wake up” and begin to multiply.

When it becomes crowded on weeds, winged individuals appear and look for “new housing” on other plants. The presence of weeds in the greenhouse or on the site significantly increases the risk of crop infection.

Aphid colonies are fond of lower leaves on cucumbers, take vitality from flowers and ovaries. Heat and humidity in the greenhouse become an additional “trigger” for their development.

The first signs of the presence of aphids in the greenhouse are the curvature of the shoots, twisting of the leaves of cucumbers, the falling of inflorescences and the death of the ovaries.

If you do not take action - pests multiply in huge numbers.

Sucking juices from plants, aphids will lead to their death. Also, these insects carry up to 50 different viruses, which additionally infect cucumbers in the greenhouse.

Live helpers and pests

When deciding what to do, it’s worth starting with the simplest. Use the living helpers given to us by nature.

  • Ladybugs. They eat aphids with pleasure. You can plant dill and leaf mustard in the greenhouse or next to it, which ladybugs love. Gardener shops sometimes sell the larvae of these insects.As an option - collect ladybugs in different places and run into the greenhouse.
  • Creeper flies. They also feed on aphids. You can attract them by planting carrots, parsley, fennel and other umbrella plants.
  • Birds. They also successfully cope with aphids. If you install a birdhouse on the site - guaranteed "fighters" with aphids are provided to you.

An unexpected situation with ants. It turns out that these harmless insects feed on sweet secretions of aphids, and in the “gratitude” they hide it for the winter from the cold in anthills and actively protect them from enemies. With the onset of heat, they are carefully distributed around the site and plants.

Advice!
Therefore, without fighting ants, it is impossible to remove aphids in cucumbers in a greenhouse.

To do this, use insecticides and gels from ants, which spray places of settlements or laid next to insect trails.

Alternative methods of excretion

There is a whole “pantry” of natural remedies that aphids categorically cannot tolerate on cucumbers in a greenhouse. The simplest recipes for infusions, which practically do not require financial investments, “cure” cucumbers no worse than serious “chemical attacks”.

The main thing is that the infection process is not too running. Names are given for the main ingredient. After cooking, cucumbers are sprayed in the greenhouse.

  • Tobacco. Pour 50 g on a liter jar of hot water. After adding soap (10 g), insist a day.
  • Ashy. 2 glasses are poured into a bucket of water. Plus 50 g of laundry soap. After a day, you can spray.
  • With garlic or onions. Pour 100 g of crushed plant with a bucket of warm water. After 24 hours, you can start spraying. When using onion peel, half of the bucket is filled with hot water for daily infusion. Then filter and add the tank to the brim.
  • Tomato. A kilogram of green tops (stepchildren) per 10 liters of water. Defend 4 hours. They boil and insist again - an hour less. After increasing the volume by 2 times, it is ready for use.
  • Potato. Finely chop 1-2 kg of fresh tops and pour a bucket of warm water (10 l). Insist 2-3 hours. If the "top" of the tops of the cucumber is exceeded, leaf burns are possible. If you use dry tops - 80 g is enough.
  • Pepper. Grind 50 g of red hot pepper in pods per liter of boiling water. To stand a couple of hours, add to the volume of a bucket of 10 liters. Use 2 liters of infusion per ten squares of the area.
  • Mustard. On 1 liter of freshly boiled water, stir 100 g of dry mustard, wipe 70 g of laundry soap. Pour into a five-liter bucket, stir and add capacity to the brim.

Also to combat aphids use solutions of medicinal plants:

  • Celandine. For 1 kg of plants, 2-3 liters of boiling water. As brewing, add hot water to 9 liters. Insist 48 hours.
  • Yarrow. Lower 2 l of boiling water to 800 g. Insist 1 hour and increase the volume to 8 liters.
  • Dandelion. A pound of green dandelion leaves has a bucket of hot water. You can add another 400 g of chopped roots. To sustain 3 hours. You can make a similar infusion of wormwood.

Be sure to spray weekly until complete destruction. At the slightest weakening of aphid control on cucumbers in the greenhouse, it will “be reborn” again.

Chemical processing of the greenhouse

To prevent aphid infections by chemical means, the greenhouse itself is processed before planting. Bushes of cucumbers can be sprayed before the appearance of the fruit. If the situation is prolonged and the pest colony in the greenhouse has wildly multiplied, there simply is no other way out.

Greenhouse preparation. In autumn, a soil layer of at least 5 cm is removed and replaced with fresh soil. All rodents and pests, including aphids, “smoke” with a sulfur checker.

All surfaces of the greenhouse are whitened, the glasses are washed with a solution of copper sulfate. In the season before planting, they are disinfected with insecticides (you can "Karbofos", "Decis"). They dig the earth in autumn and spring, completely removing the roots.

Chemical treatment of plants. Chemical products for fighting aphids in a greenhouse are divided into milder ones and those that have a certain danger to humans.The first can be processed at any time, the second - can not be made already 20 days before the collection of cucumbers.

Means completely harmless to humans

  1. Mixture for spraying the bottom of all leaves: in a bucket of water, stir 10 g of potassium salt, 20 g of superphosphate. Helps from ants. Conduct weekly.
  2. Nitroammophoski solution - for 10 liters of water 3 large spoons. Not only a “medicine”, but also feeding for cucumber.
  3. "Actofit", "Fitoverm", "Arrow" - with large aphid colonies.
  4. Effectively fight aphids in a greenhouse on cucumbers can be insecticides. Successfully apply "Arrivo", "Intavir" and other drugs with an extended spectrum of action.

On cucumbers, it is better to use them before the appearance of the ovaries, or at least 20 days before the harvest.

Proper preparation of the greenhouse for the growing season, preventive spraying of plants, the fight against ants and, if absolutely necessary, the use of chemicals, will allow each gardener to successfully rid the planting of their cucumbers in the greenhouse from harmful aphids.

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1 Comment

  1. For me personally, this problem occurs every season. Processing with chemicals does not always give a positive result. However, for myself in this article I learned a lot of useful things about effective crop protection products.
    Read carefully and you are guaranteed a rich harvest !!!

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