How to get rid of the Colorado potato beetle: useful tips

Potato leaves and stems are the favorite food of Colorado potato beetles. But striped insects with pleasure gnaw on other nightshade crops: bell peppers, eggplant, tomatoes and even fresh tobacco. Pest control begins in early spring, when gluttonous females and males crawl out of the ground. Summer residents destroy Colorado beetles mechanically, by chemical and folk methods.

Preventative measures

In areas intended for planting nightshade crops and potatoes, bait for striped insects is placed. Buried several three-liter cans, leaving only the neck above the ground, and fill the tank with 300 ml of water. Pieces of potato or peel are put in the bait.

Hungry beetles crawl into the smell and fall into the jar. They cannot get out, so they die in a few days. The bait is checked every 3-5 days. If the container is half full of pests, empty it and add a little potato.

There is a second, simpler, option for killing insects. Small potato tubers are cut in half or in four. The vegetable is soaked in gasoline or kerosene for 2-3 days.

Ready-made baits are laid out all over the garden; special attention is paid to areas where nightshade crops grew. Colorado potato beetles eat poisoned tubers, and die after a few hours or days.

The beds before planting are sprinkled with fresh potato peelings. Heaps are checked daily, and when many pests gather there, the remaining vegetables are poured with kerosene or gasoline, and then set on fire. Ashes are dispelled over the site. Ash is an excellent fertilizer that repels insects and increases the yield of garden crops.

Destroy Colorado beetles with hot coals. In early or mid-April, about 10–20 shallow holes are dug in the garden. They are filled with hot wood or peat ash, and hot coal is also suitable. Beetles feel heat and crawl towards it. They fall into the pits and die there.

Preventive methods reduce the number of pests, but they are not able to destroy completely. Females and males remain in the ground and wake up in late April or early May. While pests are in the ground, they are not afraid of insecticides and baits. Summer residents are advised not to relax and check the young shoots of potatoes in order to notice timely infection by the Colorado potato beetles.

Tuber processing

Progressive gardeners treat the seed with chemicals. Preparations protect potatoes from insects and diseases, and some increase productivity. Fans of natural products prefer traditional products that do not have synthetic ingredients.

Potatoes are planted in the moonshine before planting. Not vodka, namely home-made alcohol. It is advisable to choose the options infused with beets, wormwood or hot pepper. The smell and taste of potato tubers, soaked in moonshine, do not like the Colorado beetles, so they bypass the beds.

A handful of wood ash is put in the pits along with the seed. The birch variety is considered the most effective, but another ash is also useful. The additive is thoroughly mixed with soil. You can sprinkle fresh beds with wood ash to scare away pests.

Pests do not like the smell of rotting onion husks. The tool begins to be harvested in winter. Collect the remains in a special can with a tight lid so that the unpleasant odor does not spread throughout the site.Onion peel is added to the holes and sprinkled with pits with potatoes and young sprouts.

Additional protection

Flowers and spices with a strong and pungent odor are planted around nightshade crops. The aroma makes the Colorado potato beetles bypass the beds. Plants with protective properties include:

• garlic;
• night violet;
• cucumber grass;
• nasturtium;
• horseradish;
• calendula;
• onion;
• marigold;
• catnip;
• tansy;
• white mustard.

Beans and other legumes are planted between the beds. It is recommended to lure to the site of the mantis that eat adult Colorado beetles. Ladybugs, ladybugs, predatory bugs, lacewings, starlings and ground beetles like pest larvae.

Guinea fowl, turkeys and chickens are taught to eat adult insects. Porridge from Colorado beetles is added to the feed, bread balls are stuffed with billets. When young growth gets used to the taste of pests, it is released into the garden. The main thing is not to process the beds with natural or synthetic chemicals, so as not to poison the birds.

When the bugs begin to lay their eggs, gardeners are armed with choppers and spud bushes. Thanks to this method, plants receive a lot of oxygen and become stronger, and small larvae of striped insects die.

Alcohol attack

Summer residents are recommended to inspect young seedlings daily. When they notice on the leaves of adult beetles, you need to go to the store and buy a bottle of the cheapest vodka. Ethanol can be diluted.

Alcohol is poured into a tin can, 40-50 ml is enough, and 20-30 live Colorado beetles are thrown there. You can’t kill insects. You need to wait until the pests get drunk alcohol, and then take them out and take them back to the beds.

Vodka affects the nervous system of beetles. They transmit to the rest of the insects that there is strange and dangerous food on this site. Frightened, the pests leave the beds and do not return until next spring.

Dry powder

Bushes on which Colorado beetles live are sprinkled with corn starch. The striped invader eats the supplement along with the leaves. It swells, causing indigestion, and the insect dies.

Potatoes and tomatoes are treated with dry gypsum or cement. Substances harden in the digestive organs of insects, and they die from indigestion. Gypsum is replaced with wood ash. She does not destroy the Colorado beetles, but only scares.

The beds are sprinkled with powders in the early morning, when the leaves are still wet. The procedure is also carried out after rain. Dust sticks to the greenery, and beetles eat it. Ash and corn starch can be mixed with the ground, and gypsum is best used for processing plant tops.

Before flowering garden crops, dusting is carried out twice a month, after which it is reduced to 1 time. Gypsum or ash is poured into a bag of gauze and attached to a stick. Crush some powder over each bush. The device will simplify dusting and facilitate the procedure.

Herbal decoctions from beetles

Repels striped insect wormwood. It is necessary to chop a glass of fresh herbs, mix with a cup of wood ash, and then add 400 ml of boiling water. The container with the workpiece is covered, wrapped in a scarf and left for 4 hours. The mixture is stirred before filtering. The finished solution is poured into a bottle with a sprayer, the product is applied to the leaves and stalks of nightshade crops.

Destroy the Colorado beetles infusion, which is prepared from:

• 4 pods of hot pepper;
• 250 g of hemlock;
• 350 g of wormwood;
• glasses of shredded garlic stalks.

Fresh plants are crushed, mixed and kneaded so that they let juice. Herbal mass is poured with 15 liters of hot water and stirred. The components are steamed in the morning, and filtered in the evening and sprayed the beds. Dilute the product is not necessary.

A decoction of Colorado beetles is prepared from horsetail and dandelion roots. Mix a glass of each plant, pour into a pan with water. For 0.5 kg of herbs, you need 10 liters of fluid.Bring the workpiece to a boil and wait until it cools. In a bucket of distilled water add 1 liter of decoction of horsetail and dandelion. Spray nightshade crops.

Pour 3 kg of the gooseberry into an enameled bucket, it is also called brooms. The plant is chopped and compacted tightly, sprinkled on top with three packs of shag. It remains to fill the billet with 10 liters of hot water, bring to a boil and insist 3 days. The beds are sprayed with undiluted infusion. The product has a rather specific smell, which repels striped pests.

Fill the bucket with fresh or dried celandine. Grass does not need to be cut, compacted enough. Add water, how much will fit, and put on a strong fire. The boiling billet is removed and cooled, the liquid is separated from the cake. A solution for spraying potatoes is prepared from 500 ml of broth and 10 l of distilled water. Sometimes 1.5% calcium chloride is added to the product. On a bucket of workpiece 600-700 ml of the drug.

Destroys striped insects walnut. Pour 1 kg of fresh leaves into a large pot or other container. Last year’s fit with peel and partitions. Walnuts mixed with 10 liters of boiling water, cover and wait a week. Filtered undiluted means spray the beds.

Sunflower baskets can drive out Colorado beetles. 500 g of the plant is insisted in a bucket of hot water for 3 days, then the resulting liquid is treated with potatoes. In a similar way, an infusion of acacia bark is prepared. Only instead of 500 g take 1 kg of the crushed component.

Potato tops with a height of 15 cm and more are treated with elecampane decoction. 100 g of roots are crushed, 1 l of boiling water is added. The infusion is filtered after 2 hours, diluted with a bucket of water. During the season spend 3 sprayings. The first will destroy the Colorado potato beetles, and the second and third will protect the beds from the re-emergence of pests.

Soda, tar soap and other means

Adult insects that do not have time to lay eggs are destroyed with a solution of baking soda. 300 ml of table vinegar are poured into a bucket of filtered water. Stir and then pour out 100 g of baking soda. Wait until the foam settles, then pour into a sprayer and apply to the leaves of potatoes or tomatoes.

Plants on which young larvae live are pollinated by the remains of small bitumen with peat crumb. Take 1 kg of the first component, add 3 kg of the second and grind everything into flour. Sprinkle the beds in the early morning or evening after watering. The main thing is that the leaves are wet.

Three times a week, garden crops infected with insects are sprayed with a solution of 10 l of water and 100 ml of tar. The billet is heated so that the birch component dissolves and mixes with the liquid. Cool and filter. In the solution, a broom is moistened and the product is applied to green shoots.

Bushes with too many larvae will be saved by bitoxibacillin powder. In a ten-liter bucket of water, 100 g of the drug is dissolved and stirred. On a hundred parts spend 5 liters of the workpiece. The beds are treated three times. Between the procedures take a break lasting 6-12 days. Bushes are sprayed two weeks before harvesting.

Colorado potato beetles will be destroyed by a urea solution: 100 g of powder per 11 liters of liquid. The product is applied to the tops, it is impossible to water the roots. The drug will relieve striped insects and help damaged plants recover quickly.

Boil 300 g of birch ash in 3 l of water. Strain the warm product, mix with a bar of tar or laundry soap, which is previously rubbed on a fine grater. When the second component has dissolved, the preform is diluted with 5 L of filtered water. Stir thoroughly, then wet the broom in the product and moisten the tops of the potato bushes abundantly.

A homemade preparation for adults and young larvae is prepared from a bucket of cold water, 100 g of soap shavings and the same amount of bitter pepper, which can be replaced with ground black pepper.Dry components are dissolved in a liquid, wait 2 hours, the upper layer is drained. Spray with concentrated workpiece beds, repeat after 2 weeks.

A mixture of 10 liters of water, 30 ml of vinegar essence and 1 kg of mustard powder will save Colorado beetles. Domestic poison is infused for a day, then using gauze, the solution is separated from the precipitate. Dilute the drug is not necessary, it is immediately sprayed over the bed.

Mix 300 g of soda with the same amount of dry yeast. Pour into a bucket, pour warm water. Insist 20 minutes, spray potatoes with a broom. The procedure is carried out twice a week until the beetles disappear along with the eggs and larvae.

Sunflower oil will protect garden crops. Take a glass of funds on a bucket of heated liquid. Stir with a wooden stick, apply to the upper and lower leaves.

Tip: You need to spray the beds in the evening, when the sun sets. Ultraviolet light destroys natural compounds, destroying substances that have insecticidal properties.

Mechanical way

Folk remedies are combined with a manual method for the destruction of beetles. Liquid is poured into a wide basin or an old bucket. Will fit:

• diluted kerosene;
• plain water;
• concentrated saline;
• singe vodka.

Bushes of potatoes, covered with bugs, gently tilt over the basin and shake several times. Most insects fall into the container. The plant is inspected and plucked leaflets on which there are yellow eggs. They are thrown into a basin to adult bugs.

Gardeners who find it difficult to bend over each bush are recommended to sew a butterfly net:

1. You need a bag of sugar or flour. It is important that there are no holes in it, even small ones.
2. The right or left side of the bag is cut and loops are made into which a piece of thin wire is inserted.
3. The top of the net is sewn up so that the bugs do not crawl out through it.
4. The free end of the wire is bent, turning into a convenient handle.
5. Put the bag on the bush, tighten the loop and shake it several times.
6. After each row, the potato beetles are poured into a bowl of water or saline.

The only drawback of this device is that it does not remove leaves on which the eggs of Colorado beetles are pasted.

Effective remedy

Hand-collected insects are not thrown away, but poured into a three-liter jar and poured with cold water. For 500 g of pests, 2 liters of liquid. The glass containers are closed with a lid and wait until the striped insects settle to the bottom. After about 6-7 days, the infusion is separated from the dead beetles, diluted with water. On the part of the tool 2-3 parts of the liquid. Do not spray the beds with a concentrated workpiece, otherwise burns will remain on the leaves.

Colorado beetles secrete a toxic substance that destroys adults and young individuals, as well as 70–80% of eggs. You need to work with the insect blank in rubber gloves. Toxins are dangerous to humans.

The Colorado potato beetle is the most common and tenacious insect. A female pest lays up to 1000 eggs per season. They, like adults, quickly adapt to insecticides. To get rid of the insect, you need to alternate natural or synthetic products and destroy the Colorado potato beetles mechanically.

Video: the fight against the Colorado potato beetle without chemistry