Many gardeners and gardeners encounter in their possessions a thin cobweb that envelops trees and bushes, and also notice sick leaves, which then fall off. In this case, it is highly likely that the site is infected with a spider mite, which will be discussed in the article.
Description of the spider mite
The creature in question is a small arthropod feeding on plant sap. It has tiny sizes: females grow up to 0.6 mm, and males grow up to 0.45 mm. Lives in all parts of the planet, except Antarctica. A characteristic habitat is trees or grasses; species that feed on conifers are less common.
What is the danger of the pest
The vital activity of these insects is able to kill plantings. Ticks feed on cell sap, injecting an enzyme synthesized inside the salivary glands - it destroys the structure of the cell. As a result, the plants begin to hurt, lose color, and dry.
Initially, the parasite is quite difficult to detect, especially by accident. They populate the lower half of the leaves, immediately begin to actively absorb the juice, multiply. Gradually, small dark spots appear - waste products, and from above the sheets become like marble due to the small yellow dots, the dimensions of which are gradually increasing.
The final stage of the disease - the whole plant is wrapped in cobwebs. Damaged areas acquire white spots, which gradually increase, forming whitish zones. Soon, the plant ceases to bloom, becomes susceptible to various diseases, begins to photosynthesize poorly, the buds dry up closed, all its parts gradually fall off. All this as a whole leads to huge crop losses.
Important! In many cases, the web — background confirmation of the presence of the pest. Quite often it is absent.
In addition to this infection, various infections are transmitted, because arachnids easily move through seedlings thanks to the web. Some species (monophages) prefer only one particular variety of trees or shrubs. Others (oligophages) are less picky and make up their diet from several plants. Polyphages can eat many varieties with food.
Garden plants that can be eaten by different types of spider mites are presented in the table:
| Ordinary | legumes, grains, grapes, fruit, decorative, berry |
| Red | lemons, roses, orchids, solanaceous, calla lilies, cineraria, balsam |
| Hawthorn | hawthorn, cherry plum, apple tree, irge, mountain ash, apricot, plum |
| Date | date palm, melon, cereals, eggplant |
| Turkestan | corn, elm, quince, watermelon, nutmeg pumpkin, quinoa, seed cucumber, Datura ordinary, field bindweed, melon, burdock ordinary, acacia, ordinary cuff, white willow |
| Atlantic | clover, pears, apple trees, alfalfa, cotton, strawberries |
| Petrobia polyphagous | strawberries, legumes, cucumbers, clover, garlic, asparagus, cereals, more than 200 |
| Red fruit | more often - pink, less often - linden, oak, alder, grapes, mulberry |
| Red citrus | all citrus |
- Indoor flowers for which the tick is dangerous:
- ivy;
- violet;
- Anthurium
- rose flower;
- dracaena;
- ficus;
- balsam;
- calla;
- fuchsia;
- azalea.
Video: Spider mite in the greenhouse: what to do?
Where winters in the greenhouse
Ticks prefer warm conditions. Greenhouses are the best places for their wintering, breeding and life activities in general, as the air temperature there ranges from +25 to + 32 ° C, and humidity - from 35 to 60%. In winter, pests take shelter underground, but when spring comes out, populate tops and shrubs.
For the most part, spider mites settle on top of eggplant, tomatoes, grapes, cucumbers, apple trees, but sometimes other crops are susceptible to infection. When a bad, lean year comes, pests can populate even the weed. They get into the greenhouse quite easily: from the clothes of the gardener, animal hair, seedlings, etc. Plantations growing near the aisle in the greenhouse initially suffer, because they are easier to populate.
Important! The main reason for the appearance and active reproduction of small pests is excessive fertilization of the soil with phosphorus. Initially, phosphorus scares away, kills other insects that eat mostly the described type of arthropods, which leads to the appearance of the latter in large quantities.
Ways to combat the spider mite in the greenhouse
The problem under consideration is very common, but it can be difficult to notice pests right away. They are practically not afraid of traditional methods of struggle, so it is quite difficult to destroy them. Consider the existing methods of destruction.
Chemical
Ticks easily resist most insecticides. However, there are chemicals that can scare them away and destroy them - these include acaricides that kill all subspecies of the arthropod. An insecticide is also an effective substance in the fight.
The use of chemicals is an extreme case. It is recommended to resort to it when the other methods (biological, folk, agricultural) failed.
The following drugs are used:
- Fitoverm;
- “Akarin”;
- “Tick-borne”;
- "Vertimek";
- Agravertin;
- sticks "Plant Pin", "Etisso", "Substral", "Green House".
When these agents do not have an effect, they use stronger drugs - Actellik or Bi-58. It is important to consider that the soil must be well prepared before using the above products.
Soil preparation actions:
- Water abundantly.
- Prepare a solution of the selected drug according to the instructions - in order to better envelop, mix in the green potash soap.
- Make sure that the medicine bypasses the root.
To process seedlings, the soil needs several times - 5 with an interval of 10 days.
Biological
The most environmentally friendly way to fight.
There are several directions:
- Population of the infected area with other insect enemies. These include predator ticks that eat exclusively the mentioned parasites.
- Planting repellent plants in the winter road that spread a tick repellent odor.
- The use of acaricides of biological nature based on mushrooms ("Bicol", "BTB").
Folk
The method is based on the use of various drugs, herbal decoctions, infusions. Folk is considered the most popular, because the funds available from every summer owner are used.
Did you know? For a person, distinct from the crop, the spider mite is absolutely safe.
Most often, similar methods are used:
- Watering the beds with infusion of potato tops. Arachnids will die, but the eggs will be intact. It is necessary to repeat the procedure 3-4 times.
- The use of various aromatic herbs - dope ordinary, extract from garlic, alder.
- Irrigation with a decoction of potato tops with the addition of laundry soap. Helps fight arachnids, aphids and the like.
- Watering the infusion of onion peels.
- Irrigation with vinegar, ammonia, hydrogen peroxide.
- Rubbing with infusions of garlic, yarrow, horseradish.
- The most popular method is spraying with a solution of laundry soap.
Agrotechnical
It consists in processing the garden with various devices.
Mandatory tricks:
- Digging during the autumn-spring period, weeding from weed, harvesting spoiled, dead leaves, plant debris, fruits.
- Annual disinfection at the onset of the summer season with sulfur drafts, bleach.
- Alternating planting of seedlings with those for which ticks are harmless.
- Leaving wide empty rows between the beds.
- Spraying with water from a spray bottle.
A wonderful way is to fumigate with sulfuric drafts of a polycarbonate greenhouse. This is a good prevention of infections, the fight against parasites, since the spreading smoke penetrates into all possible cracks.
Sulfur checker must be used clearly according to the instructions.
After spraying for 2-3 days, all doors and openings must be closed, after which it is important to ventilate well. Thus it is possible to get rid of ticks with a probability of 100%.
How to process a greenhouse
At different times of the year, prevention and control are a little different. How exactly, we will consider further.
Fall
Check out
If it is difficult to do so directly, it is worth falling asleep with snow.
After should organize a general cleaning: wash the entire structure completely, disinfect with a solution of acaricidal agents or copper sulfate (5%), with a solution of bleach (5%).
To prepare the latter, you need to dilute a full bucket of water with 500 g of the substance. The film with which the winter garden is covered must be left until spring. It is also worth using sulfur drafts in autumn.
In the spring
At this time, it makes sense to process if your or a neighboring site has suffered earlier, since in this case there is a high probability that the pests hid in large numbers in winter, and in the spring they will necessarily begin active life activities. However, if they avoided your territory, spring processing would be superfluous.
Sometimes irrigation alone is not enough: it will not lead to the necessary result, because the soil and the walls of the greenhouse remain infected. You need to start processing in the spring from the soil, because the insect hibernates directly there. The film should be removed just in the spring, and then destroyed. Then you need abundant watering. If infected parts are found, they should be torn and burned.
Rather effective means in combating parasites are watering with acaricidal solutions or instillation of special sticks, which after watering dissolve, fall inside the root system and spread pesticides inside the plant.
Preventive measures
The tick is incredibly resistant to many difficult conditions. However, if prophylaxis is carried out, then infection will be prevented. Of course, it is easier to protect indoor flowers from them, while greenhouse ones are much more difficult to save.
There are such preventive measures:
- Try to plant shrubs as far away as possible.
- Maintaining air humidity inside the greenhouse with a level of 80–90%, as well as temperatures up to 25 ° C, will create inappropriate conditions for their life.
- Also, in order to protect the crop, irrigation of trunks with acaricides is suitable.
- Planting a number of marigolds alongside will help to reduce migration, reduce the pest settlement.
- Processing, weeding, digging, harvesting spoiled fruits, crops, inspection for the presence of white spots is also required.
- Be sure to clean and tidy inside the covered area in the fall, before wintering. Sometimes soil replacement is required.
- Arachnids do not feel well with ultraviolet radiation, so 2 times a week it is worth irradiating the area with ultraviolet light.
- New indoor flowers should be quarantined for the first time. It is imperative to maintain humidity by spraying. Before planting crops, it is important to sanitize the soil mixture - pour plenty of boiling water, hold in the oven at a temperature of 180 ° C, boil in a water bath.
Did you know? Ticks live not for long — 30–50 days. However, during this period, the female lays up to 400 eggs, of which only 3 individuals are born in 3 days.
A spider mite is a rather significant danger in the process of growing plants: the entire crop may suffer, therefore it is very important to resort to effective methods of prevention and control. Despite the fact that it is quite difficult, do not despair, but continue to use an integrated approach.
