Carrot Fly and its Fight: A Review of Destruction Techniques

Hello! Once, my friend was tempted to grow vegetables for himself. And, as far as I remember, everything went smoothly with him.

But the other day I decided to look at him and then he told me the story.

It turned out that at first everything was fine, but then he made a mistake somewhere and began to find strange flies on vegetables.

And then, digging out the same carrot, he noticed small larvae in it. He immediately began to look for ways to get rid of these pests.

But for starters, I found out with whom he was dealing. It turned out that they were carrot flies. Unfortunately, they ate not only carrots, but also parsley and celery. It became clear that procrastination with the destruction of insects is not worth it. After going through different methods, he still found the perfect one, and soon there were no flies.

Want to know more about the carrot fly and the fight against it? Where can it come from and how to prevent its appearance? Then read on.

Carrot Fly Control Methods

The main way to deal with carrot flies is the agrotechnical method. No matter how harmful the carrot fly, the methods of proper agricultural technology will help to preserve the crop.

Methods of pest control are mechanical tillage, observing optimal sowing dates, special measures for sowing and harvesting, crop rotation.

Of great importance in reducing crop losses is constant monitoring of the condition of the plants, quick response and immediate implementation of the necessary treatment.

When choosing an insecticide, one should pay attention to the fact that, in addition to its effectiveness, it must have low toxicity for humans and animals, quickly decompose, and have a relatively short waiting time before the crop can be eaten.

If a carrot fly began to fly around a garden with carrots in a summer house, how to deal with it? In home gardens against onion flies, the following preventative measures can be used:

1. Choose a variety resistant to carrot fly: Calgary, Flacca. The more the variety contains sugar, the less it attracts the pest.
2. Flies prefer to lay eggs in moist, shaded places. For planting carrots, you need to choose the right place: the site should not be in the lowland and be in the shade. Landings should be aired and warmed up.
3. Usually carrots are sown densely, and then thinned out. If carrot fly intensively damages root crops every year, this method of cultivation is not recommended. Landings should be initially rare. You can use dragged seeds for planting or glued to the tape.
4. Before sowing, seeds are treated with preparations against soil rot: azotofit, trichodermin or phytocide.

Mechanical tillage. Especially important is a high-quality deep digging of the soil.The vast majority of root pests winter in the soil, including the larvae of a carrot fly. Deep digging contributes to the fact that part of the larvae appears on the surface, where they are destroyed by birds and winter frosts.

Damage can be reduced due to earlier or later sowing in such a way as to bypass the arrival of the flies at the most unfavorable time for the carrots, when the plant is already strong or it will no longer be able to lay eggs.

It’s good to plant garlic or onions near the beds. The smell of these plants repels pests. Seed treatment before sowing. 10 days before sowing, you should soak them in warm water for a couple of hours, then put the seeds on a wet cloth and keep them in the refrigerator for 10 days, and dry them before sowing.

Seeds can also be treated with special preparations. Seed treatment before sowing protects seedlings from the first generation of the pest. The processing method is described in the instructions on the packaging of the drug used. Processing plants against flies.

The chemical method of control is used when infection of crops is more often than 1 larva per 20 plants. Plants are sprayed with Arrivo, Karate and insecticides approved against the pest.

There are various treatments available, some with a waiting period of up to two months. In this case, this procedure applies only to carrots intended for the autumn harvest. There are drugs with a waiting period of about a month: Inta-Vir, Arrivo and others.

How to get rid of carrot flies using agronomic techniques

Like everyone, carrot flies have their weaknesses. It is worth playing on them and you can forget about this pest forever.

Secondly, the carrot fly does not like the allocation of the roots of marigolds and marigolds. So it will not be superfluous to decorate the aisles of the carrot ridge with these wonderful flowers. And beautiful, and the fly does not fly!

Thirdly, the carrot fly does not fly high, it rises to a maximum of 80 centimeters. Therefore, it is advisable to arrange carrot plantings as far as possible from last year's carrot ridges and enclose them around the perimeter with breathable material (spandbod, lutrasil, even the old tulle).

In this fence, you need to provide an entrance for your beloved, but a carrot fly cannot stand such a high barrier. Finally, the carrot fly prefers moisture and shade.

So the less frequent the landing, the better. The less watering the better. It is more efficient to water the carrots once a week, but abundantly, to a greater depth than to swing a watering can over the beds every day.

Scare

Methods aimed at repelling insects:

The best result can be achieved if carrot crops are processed once a month. These simple methods of fighting a carrot fly will help to grow an excellent crop of umbrella crops, as well as preserve the resulting carrot fruits throughout the winter.

The most common fighting methods

First of all, compliance with all agricultural measures. Sow only treated seeds in early spring or before winter. And:

1. Regularly remove weeds, which are the habitat of many harmful insects and bugs. Be sure to break through the seedlings, preventing the density of carrots. It is also not recommended to make fresh manure before planting.
2. The use of insecticides. Chemical processing has always been considered the most effective, but not very useful for the vegetable itself. Still, chemistry is chemistry! Spraying should be carried out during the appearance of flies and oviposition.
3. Sowing carrots next to onions. This helps the vegetables to protect themselves from the attack of both carrot and onion flies.
4. Sowing carrots in lighted, elevated areas, devoid of excess moisture.
5. Mulch the soil with peat. This insect does not tolerate it.
6. Apply dusting with tobacco dust or dry mustard, sprinkle aisle. Perform the procedure twice, as is the case with chemicals.
7. Plant carrot beds with wormwood, yarrow and other “aromatic” herbs.
8. Make an infusion of garlic and onions, at the first appearance of flies, carefully spray the garden bed. It will be good to add liquid soap to the infusion.
9. No less effective is the method of spraying with coniferous infusion.
10. A mixture of sand (1 l) and tobacco dust (1 tbsp.spoon) is used by sprinkling the beds.
11. Shelter of argon plantings with fiber after watering: realizing that laying eggs in moist soil will not work, carrot flies will fly away in search of a more suitable place for procreation.
12. Kerosene from a carrot fly is also used: carrot furrows are sprayed in a small amount.

Pest Prevention

During periods of mass reproduction of pests, there is a great risk of being left without a crop at all. It is important not to miss the moment of active growth of root crops when the first few leaves appear from the ground.

If this period is missed, then the garden culture develops its protective properties - the plant cannot completely get rid of pests, but carrot tissue gradually begins to degenerate and root crops become hard and dry.

If the root crops are severely affected, then they are unable to fully develop, as a result, it is possible to harvest strongly twisted, tightened and small root crops. Carrots infected with larvae cannot be stored; it quickly deteriorates and rots.

These simple recommendations will help you in the fight against insects:

In the fight against carrot flies, all methods are good, if you constantly loosen the soil between the rows, this will help repel pests.

Do not forget to timely weed the site. As soon as the plant reaches the phase of 2-3 leaves, you can thin out the carrots, remove weak and damaged shoots, leave only strong and healthy.

After thinning, you do not need to leave the tops on the rows, it attracts pests. Weeds, sprouts and damaged root crops need to be carried on a compost heap or buried.

Mulching the soil between rows of planted carrots with peat crumbs. On 1 m2, put 0.3 kg of crumbs. Carrot fly does not like peat soils.

The fight against carrot fly folk remedies

First I’ll tell you how to deal with carrot flies using folk methods. To do this, mix tobacco dust with wood ash or slaked lime in a ratio of 1: 1 and sprinkle this mixture on the soil in the rows of carrots at the rate of 5-10 g / sq.

Repeat this treatment 2-3 times with an interval of 8-10 days. Against the pest, an alternative remedy from a decoction of tomato tops is also effective: finely chop 4 kg of stems and leaves and pour 10 liters of boiling water.

Soak the solution for two days and strain. Add 40-50 g of laundry soap or 30 ml of liquid soap as an adhesive.

In addition, to repel the pest during the whole summer, you can spray carrots with tinctures of chamomile, yarrow, wormwood, burdock, or onion (garlic).

Such treatments are especially effective in thinning carrots. The carrot fly is scared away by a pungent odor that, after treatment with herbal preparations, persists for 4-5 days.

Tinctures

If you cannot build a fence, if you are afraid to plant carrots along with onions and marigolds, because you have never done so before, well ... A whole liver of folk remedies against carrot flies will help you. The least labor-intensive (but rather costly) method involves the use of biological products from pests.

In spring and early summer, carrot beds can be poured with a solution of ammonia: 1-2 tablespoons per 10 liters of water.Ammonia and a carrot fly will scare you with a smell and will work as a nitrogen top dressing.

In early June, two times with an interval of 10 days, carrot beds are shed with a solution of sodium chloride: 1 tablespoon per 10 liters of water.

As soon as the shoots of carrots form 2-3 real leaflets (or during the first thinning) they take 400 grams of onion husks, pour five liters of hot water, insist for two days, then filter and spray the crops. Onion husks are not thrown away, but laid out in the aisles.

Then the bottles are laid out on carrot plantings. In the sun, naphthalene heats up and gives off an unpleasant odor for a carrot fly.

In order to confuse the fly with an unusual smell, carrots are sprayed with thinning of orange peels during thinning: 1 kilogram of dry peels should be poured with 10 liters of warm water and insisted for three days in a dark place.

Many gardeners at the time of departure of a carrot fly sprinkle aisles with tobacco dust, mustard powder, black or red ground pepper. It helps someone perfectly, someone doesn’t.

In conclusion, I would like to draw your attention once again to the fact that not a single spraying or watering is effective in such a way, such as crop rotation, mixed plantings and barriers. These simple and effective techniques have long been successfully used around the world. Try it and you!

Other folk methods

The best way to deal with this pest is prevention. It is important to observe alternation. The best precursors for carrots will be garlic, tomatoes, radishes, onions. Manure cannot be added to the soil as fertilizer, but peat plantings can be mulched.

How to get rid of a carrot fly if it has already started flying over the beds with carrots? Insects can be scared away by sprinkling plants with any sharply smelling substance that drowns out the smell of carrots: black or red pepper, mustard powder, and shag.

Mixed landings are a good way to scare away flies. The insect does not tolerate the smell of garlic and onions and does not lay eggs in the beds where these crops are mixed.

A proven remedy for carrot flies - wormwood infusion:

1. Pick a 10 liter bucket of wormwood.
2. Pour boiling water, wait until it cools.
3. Divide the infusion into three equal parts.
4. Add 7 liters of water to each part of the infusion.

In most cases, no chemical treatments are required to get rid of the harmful insect. Folk remedies will be quite enough to protect the crop from this pest.

How to deal with the larva of a carrot fly?

In garden areas, it is better to fight the larva with a mechanical method:

How to deal with it biological and chemical methods?

Biological products are a great way to deal with a variety of insects, including carrot flies. They are safe for human health, while they are highly effective.

Conduct seed treatment with biological products, such as:

1. phytocide p;
2. trichodermin;
3. azotofit.

This will increase the resistance of root crops to pests, while leaving them completely harmless. Use when the air temperature warms up enough and reaches about 20 ° C. This will help you get rid of the pest effectively.

Spray seedlings with insecticides approved against pests.

Processing of plants is carried out during the growing season, the solution is prepared according to the instructions on the packaging of the product. Chemical methods of control are highly effective in pest control, but it is always necessary to strictly observe the dosage of the drug, its frequency of use, and remember individual protective equipment when working with chemicals.

Chemicals

Processing carrots from carrot flies with chemical insecticides is not the safest way to control the pest. But, when it comes to saving the crop, this method is most effective and justified.

All chemicals for carrot flies can be divided into 3 large categories:

1. For seed treatment before planting in spring. These insecticides make future plants more resistant to pest damage. For this purpose, “Prestige” is effective.
2. To scare away adult carrot flies from beds. The use of funds will help to avoid laying eggs by females near plantings. These drugs are very toxic and retain their properties for a month after use, so if the crop is harvested during this period, it will be unfit for food and can cause poisoning of the body.
3. To repel carrot flies during their summers, they use Karate and Arrivo.
4. To destroy the larvae. For this purpose, diazinone-based preparations are suitable: Bazudin, Fly-eater, Provotox, designed to combat soil pests. Usually they are granules that need to be embedded in the ground.

The listed preparations are included in the list of how you can cultivate the land from a carrot fly in the fall. Larvae and pupae, in contact with diazinonovye insecticides, quickly die.

Observing safety measures and instructions, you can solve the problem of infection of plantings with a carrot fly quickly and efficiently.

What poisons can you spray the beds?

To process carrots from a carrot fly with chemicals is effective during the period of active departure of this insect. It occurs at a time when weather conditions stabilize in the temperature range of 15-170 C. During this period, it is necessary to spray the seedlings and the space closest to the carrot beds with special compounds.

The most popular drug for spraying garden plantings is Inta-Vir. It is bred in the proportions of 1 tablet per liter of water and sprayed onto plants during the growing season. You can start directly from the moment the shoots appear. As a rule, one treatment per season is enough.

Means of Karate Zeon, D.V. is a broad-acting contact pesticide. In addition to carrot flies, it is able to kill ticks and some other pests. The drug is diluted in an amount of 50 g / l of water.

Means Prestige, KS - the perfect answer to the question of how to process carrots from a carrot fly, even before it is sown in the ground.Seeds are pickled immediately before planting in the soil. The mixture protects future sprouts from diseases and pests.

If carrots are already infected

But often the observance of precautions and the use of funds is not enough, and the larvae still infect the root crop. In this case, the question arises of how to store carrots damaged by a carrot fly.

Unfortunately, they will have to get rid of such root crops, because even at low temperatures the larvae will continue their parasitic activity and will be able to pupate. Stored carrots can only be stored in processed form: dried, grated and frozen, canned.

Carrot fly is a pest that infects root crops and makes them unsuitable for storage. To achieve the best result in the fight against it, it is better to use a set of measures: prevention, the use of folk remedies and, if mass destruction was not avoided, the use of chemical insecticides and biological preparations.

The harmfulness of carrot flies

It is not the carrot flies themselves that harm root crops, but their larvae. They make winding long passages in carrots and feed on its flesh. As a result of such exposure, carrots become stiff, sometimes blacken and acquire a bitter aftertaste. The larvae of carrot flies make the root crop completely unsuitable for eating.

Among carrots, pests give particular preference to such varieties as Karotel, Nantes and Chanson. The larvae of a carrot fly begin to eat carrots when its sprouts are still weak, because of this the shoots are significantly behind in growth, they have strong developmental abnormalities.

You can understand that the root crop is infected with a carrot fly by the color of the foliage, which first becomes purple-red, and then turns yellow and completely dries. When the carrots get a little stronger and the fruit appears, the larvae climb into the fruit itself and feed on the pulp of the carrot.

Excrement and skins of larvae remain in carrots, which is why it acquires a bitter taste. And since the plant produces a protective reaction, its tissues are reborn, and becomes stiff.

As a result of the activity of the larvae of carrot flies, the fetus is deformed and can sometimes be divided into several parts. It is impossible to store such carrots, because it quickly rots.

Departure time of a carrot fly and damage from it

Pupae of a carrot fly winter well both in the basement next to the carrot and in the surface soil layer on the plot. They perfectly tolerate any frost, practically do not freeze. In May, when the apple tree and mountain ash begin to bloom, and the soil temperature warms up to 15 ° C, we can expect the first spring outing of a carrot fly.

Over the next 20-25 days, she will lay eggs at the base of the stems of a young carrot. After 5-10 days, larvae emerge from the eggs and begin to bite into the root crop.

Until July, the larvae “for both cheeks” crack our carrots, and then pupate and turn into the second generation of flies, which again begin to breed. The summer departure of a carrot fly falls in mid-July - mid-August.

Now the children of the second generation will regale themselves with ripe carrots, and then they will remain wintering in the beds and in the storages.

Conditions for Appearance

Carrot fly is a black insect widespread everywhere with mica wings. Usually it feeds on plants of the umbelliferous family, not only carrots, but also daikon, parsley, dill, and turnip. It does harm during periods of excessive reproduction.

The most "favorite" flies are carrot varieties - high in sugar, such as Chanson, Nantes, Karotel. Longer-fruited, low-sugar varieties are less damaged.

A significant amount of pests appears in areas of the garden with high humidity:

Pupa of the fly winter in root crops and land. In the spring, during the flowering period of bird cherry, their first flight begins. Adult individuals get out of the ground and begin to lay eggs near forage plants.

The laying time is more than 2 weeks, and only one fly is able to lay several tens of eggs. The larvae hatch, fall inside delicious sweet fruits, feed, then go through the pupation stage.

Here it is easy to miss! Therefore, the issue of getting rid of an insect during the summer season is quite acute for Russian gardeners.

Reasons for the appearance

Carrot fly is found everywhere, but most of all in areas with high humidity. The insect is a small fly of black color with transparent, as if mica wings. It feeds on the nectar of umbrella plants and does not harm the crop.

The main reason for the appearance of the pest is the high contamination of the site with insect pupae. This happens if from year to year root crops are sown in the same place.

Flies have many natural pests that limit their numbers. If in some year the number of insects has become abnormally high, then the biological balance is disturbed in the area. For example, during an unsuccessful insecticide treatment, beneficial insects, predators that feed on flies, died along with harmful insects.

The first generation appears in May, their departure coincides with the beginning of flowering bird cherry. Processing from a carrot fly carried out at this time protects the crop by almost 100%. The problem is that two generations of flies appear during the season and the second flight is easy to miss - it depends on the weather.

How to detect

To see an insect on tops is very problematic, since its size does not exceed 4.5 mm. A carrot fly hibernates in the topsoil. As soon as the earth warms up under the rays of the spring sun, pests begin to awaken from sleep.

Identify the plants that the fly chose, as the leaves. Leaves acquire a purple hue. Gradually, they begin to turn yellow, as the insect draws all the juices out of them. The larvae of a carrot fly gnaw at themselves the moves inside the root crop. Affected carrots will have an unpleasant bitter taste.

The presence of a carrot fly can be checked with a trap. Cut off the top of the plastic bottle at a third of the height. Place the neck in the lower part of the container with the narrow side down. Pour bread kvass. Place a trap on the bed. The smell of fermentation will attract pests, and they will climb into the bottle.

Sometimes the pest can cause very serious damage to the crop. Modern methods can protect plants from this pest. There are many popular methods of dealing with it, which helps to minimize the use of pesticides.

Signs of Pest Presence

It is not so easy to grow a good crop, this requires careful care of the plants in the garden, but even so, you can be left without fresh vegetables in the fall if you do not deal with pests.

Pests damage both plants during the growing season and the crop itself. One of the worst pests is carrot fly. The insect affects not only carrots, but also other root crops in the garden, as well as parsley and celery.

Damaged root crops cannot be stored and consumed, so they can no longer be saved. To get rid of a carrot fly quickly, it is necessary to identify it at the plantings as early as possible.

The characteristic signs of the appearance of a carrot fly are as follows:

1. moves in the zone of the root neck, traces of the pest activity;
2. root vegetables become violet-red in color unusual for them;
3. the tops begin to turn yellow and dry;
4. fruits damaged by it are deformed into ugly forms;
5. root crops crack;
6. palatability deteriorates, root crops become bitter and smell unpleasant.

With the help of all these signs, you can quickly determine the appearance of a fly and apply to it all the fighting methods that you know.