What are potato beetles?
originating from North America, potato beetles, leptinotarsa decemlinea are the greatest threat to potato crops in the United States. These beetles rapidly develop resistors to pesticides, so it is very difficult to eliminate as soon as the field is contaminated. The larvae and adult potato beetles feed on potato plants. They can also feed on other types of vegetables such as tomatoes, tobacco and cabbage. However, when potato crops were introduced into the area, the beetles changed their main diet and instead began to feed primarily on potato plants. Mistakes quickly spread to other agricultural land and soon covered the entire United States. The only places that these insects are not found is in parts of Nevada, California and Florida. These mistakes can even be found in the areas of Canada and traveled overseas to infest crops in Asia and Europe.
about 0.5 inches (1.27 cm) long, potato beetles have distinctive black and yellow stripes running down the dome -shaped back. As well as mnOho beetles appear to be a hard shell, but in fact they open into the wings. The larvae are red with small black spots.
Potato beetle life cycles vary depending on the region, from one to three generations per year. Adults spend about one leg (0.3 m) below the surface in the potato field and emerge in the spring to join and eat. The eggs are laid in clusters on the underside of the leaves. Clusters contain about 25 eggs and one woman can determine a total of 500 eggs.
As soon as it hatches, one larva can eat up to 15.7 square inches (40 cm 2 ) in a single day. One adult eats approximately 19.5 square inches (50 cm
There are several types of pest control options. Insecticides should only be used once to preventIlo beetles in the development of resistance, but even so they are not often a reliable method of elimination of pests. Genetically treated potatoes help increase the resistance to errors, but are not allowed for any crop marked organic.
also helps crop with a thin fabric or trim the field with plastic also helps prevent potato beetles from entering the field. Other options for pest control are the introduction of natural predators, such as spiders and lace, to follow the population, as well as removing the upper soil layer in the winter months to reduce the soil temperature and kill adults during hibernation. In small home gardens, the removal of larvae and adults is manually the easiest way to eliminate contamination.