How to get rid of aphids on currants. Features of the fight against different types of aphids. Folk remedies for aphids on currants

Aphids are a very voracious, insatiable insect, but they especially like red and black currants, that is, their shoots and leaves. If you notice that the leaves on the bushes have begun to curl and change ugly, take a closer look at the shoots - they are probably completely covered with blackness - numerous individuals of aphids.

What to do? Of course, fight aphids on currants before they destroy all the plants on your site. And about how to get rid of aphids on currants correctly.
The fight against aphids on currants involves a lot of different folk remedies and methods. All of them have been tested for many generations and are good for reducing aphids and killing them.

Aphids on currants: how to fight

You can try to get rid of aphids on currants using a soap solution. Take a bucket warm water, plan two pieces into it laundry soap and stir thoroughly until it is completely dissolved, being careful not to raise strong foam. You can add a glass of ash to the same composition and leave it overnight to increase the effectiveness of this product. Then spray all the bushes with this solution, you can also grab other plants in the neighborhood to cut off all escape routes for the aphids.

Another great option How to fight aphids on currants is to cook onion broth. For 10 liters of water, take half a kilo of onion peels and cook it for half an hour. After this, you need to cool the broth and sprinkle the currants with it.

In a similar way, you can brew a decoction of dandelion flowers, leaving it for several hours.

Finally, aphids, which are especially resistant to adversity, can be destroyed by preparing a thermonuclear composition of tobacco shag and red hot pepper. Take a bucket of water, pour three hundred grams of shag into it, chop a pod of hot pepper and add it there. Let it all sit overnight under the lid, and in the morning it’s time to spray the bushes. But this should be done exclusively with gloves and a mask, otherwise you can harm not only the aphids, but also yourself.

Controlling aphids on currants with chemicals

Of course, you can just go to the store and buy the first chemical you come across and treat the area with it. But, firstly, fighting aphids on currants is not so difficult, so using chemicals here is the same as shooting sparrows from a cannon, and secondly traditional methods- still more environmentally friendly and safe than chemicals.

The presence of aphids on currant bushes will be indicated by changes that appear on the leaves. In red and white currants, reddish swellings form on the blades; in black currants, the leaves curl into a tube. Red and white currants are favored by the currant hairy aphid and its red gall variety; a colony of gooseberry shoot aphids settles on black ones. For active growth population of this harmful insect dry is required hot weather. Such favorable conditions There are a lot of aphids, and they cause significant damage to currants, and the berry yield decreases. You need to fight aphids throughout the summer.

How to spray currants against aphids?

With a small infestation of the currant bush, you can do without pesticides in the fight against the pest. But if the plantings are large, only chemicals are used. When spraying bushes, you need to take into account the fact that aphid colonies are located with reverse side sheet, that is, you need to process the underside sheet plate. The solution should reach the areas where the pest is concentrated.

If you find a small number of leaves with red swellings, they are torn off and destroyed (burned). Do the same with curled leaves at the tips of the shoots.

Folk remedies for fighting aphids on currants are as follows:

1. An infusion made from tobacco (shag) and ash will reduce the aphid population in the garden. For a 10-liter bucket of water you need to take 0.4 kg of each substance.
2. To spray currant bushes against aphids, you can use a solution, for the preparation of which a spoon is diluted in a liter of water soda ash and add planed soap.
3. Infusion of celandine is also used in the fight against aphids on currants. In a 10-liter bucket, 3.5 kg of fresh grass are infused for a day. The entire bush is sprayed with the resulting product. Since celandine contains poison, protective equipment must be used during work.
4. If there are onion peels left after winter, they can also be used to prepare an infusion. 200 grams of dry husk are infused in a bucket of water (10 l). Instead of peels, 3 kg of onion feathers or finely chopped heads will do.
5. Wood ash itself is effective means in the fight against aphids in the garden. 0.2 kg wood ash pour boiling water over it and let it cool on its own. Next, add grated soap (or liquid soap) to the product and dilute the volume, increasing to 10 liters.

If there are a lot of currant bushes, you will have to use chemicals to control aphids. Good result gives spraying with Vofatoks, Karbofos, Kinmiks, Rovikurt, Aktara. You need to spray the bushes three times: the first time when the buds have not yet blossomed, the second time after the leaves appear, the third time in the summer, but no later than a month before picking the berries.

Aphids are a common pest that like to feast on the green part of the plant. It happens that aphids attack currants when there are already berries on the bush. In this case, it is necessary to do something as quickly as possible to combat these insects and not lose the harvest.

Traditional methods

Every gardener has several effective and safe home methods for controlling aphids in his arsenal.

Soap solution

You need to take 300-400 g of laundry soap, grind it with a grater, and then add it to 10 liters of water. Flexible currant branches can be dipped into the prepared solution.

Or you can use a sprayer to treat the entire bush. In this case, it is necessary to wet the leaves on both sides. But how to use laundry soap against aphids on an apple tree will help you understand this

Garlic infusion

Garlic infusion

Infusion of celandine

Take ½ bucket of finely chopped plant, add water to the brim. Leave for 24 hours, then filter and apply to spray the berry bush. But how to prepare celandine for aphids on trees, and how effective this remedy is, is described in the article

Infusion of celandine

Iodine and milk

You need to take 100 ml of milk and 1 bottle of iodine. Dissolve all this in 1 liter of water. Use the resulting solution to spray the bush. But how does spraying a tomato with iodine during flowering occur, and how effective is this remedy?

Vodka

You need to take a bottle of vodka and put some liquid soap for better adhesion of the solution to the leaves. Treat the affected parts of the plant with the resulting composition. You might also find it useful to know how you can

Soda

You need to take 75 g of soda and add it to 10 liters of water. Spraying with this solution can be carried out at any stage of development of the berry crop.

Marigold infusion

This remedy is very effective in the fight against aphids. To prepare the infusion, you need to use dried flowers. Take 10 liters of water and add ½ bucket of fine raw materials. Wait 3 days and then filter and add to ready solution 50 g grated soap. It is also worth paying attention to how you can do

Tomato tops

Using tomato tops, it is possible to obtain effective solution to combat aphids. For this, 2 kg of dry tops and 4 kg of fresh tops are used. Finely chop the raw material and add 10 liters of water. Set on fire for half an hour.

Cool the resulting solution and store it in the refrigerator. Before use, you need to dilute the concentrated solution with water in a ratio of 1:5.

Celandine

To obtain the solution, take 4 kg of fresh grass. Finely chop it and add 10 liters of water. Wait 24 hours and then apply the solution to treat currant bushes.

Pharmaceutical chamomile

To prepare the solution, take 1 kg of raw materials and 10 liters of water. Wait 12 hours and then filter. Before using the composition, it must be diluted in a ratio of 1:3 with water. To get maximum results, you need to add a little laundry soap.

Dandelions

Yarrow

You need to take 1 kg of dry stems and leaves of the plant, add 2 liters of boiling water. Leave in a water bath for 30 minutes. Before use, dilute the concentrate with 10 liters of water.

Horse sorrel infusion

Take 400 g of raw material, finely chop it and add 10 liters of water. Before using the spray solution, it must be filtered.

Orange peels

Take 100 g of peel, add 1 liter of water. Leave for 3 days. After this, you can spray the plant.

alder leaves

Take 1 kg of raw material and add 5 liters of water. Let it sit for 1 day, but before doing so, simmer the product on the stove for 30 minutes. Before using the decoction, it must be filtered.

In the video - a remedy for aphids on currants:

Chemicals

You can use chemicals to control aphids only a month before the berries ripen. The following formulations remain effective:

Fumigation of the garden

Fumigation of the garden remains a very common method of combating aphids. For these purposes, you can use tobacco, mushroom or rubber. Fumigation should be carried out before the buds open, as well as at the moment of their opening.

If you choose the option with rubber, then you need to take an old and unnecessary container and place a piece of rubber. Place a smolder under each bush. If you use tobacco or mushroom, then manipulation is carried out using a beekeepers smoker.

It is necessary to fumigate the plants for at least 3 hours. It is best to carry out the manipulation in the evening, when there is no wind. After this, the aphid dies completely, and there is no need to use chemicals. The disadvantages of this method include the presence of acrid smoke, which has a detrimental effect on human health.

The video shows the fumigation process:

It is necessary to be extremely careful when fighting aphids on currants when there are already berries. It's best to take advantage folk remedies. Some of them are very effective and at the same time completely safe. But it is worth using chemicals only in extreme cases, if there is mass destruction pests, and other control methods do not give a positive result.

Aphids are enough voracious insect, which is for a short time can destroy a lot of plants. In addition to flowers, it also harms berry bushes, for example, currants. However, not everyone knows how to fix this problem. If you have aphids on your currants, our advice will tell you how to fight them.

Before fighting aphids on currants, you should carefully inspect the bushes. If the situation allows, then it is better to cut off the damaged shoots on which the insects are located. In principle, they can also be washed off the leaves with a strong water jet, but in this case the pests may return to their place. Soapy water kills aphids very effectively. To prepare it, it is better to take liquid potash, which has good solubility. As a last resort, you can always use laundry soap. For the mixture you need to take about 30 g of product per 1 liter of water. After spraying, the insects stick together, cannot move and feed, and therefore die.

If you don’t know about currants, you can still make traps for these pests. For example, take a container small size and lightly pour soapy water into it. The color is attractive to aphids. Insects willingly climb into the container and drown. If you don’t have time to bother with preparing mixtures, you can spread pieces between the bushes aluminum foil. This way you can prevent the spread of insects.

Before fighting aphids on currants, determine the degree of damage to the bushes. Maybe, mechanical methods fixing the problem will not help. However, there are a large number of different decoctions that will help both destroy pests and protect the bushes from them. further emergence. For example, you can prepare a decoction of potato tops. To do this, you will need about 1200 g of green mass to leave in water for several hours. Then the mixture should be filtered and the bushes can be sprayed. Alternatively, you can use dried raw materials.

If you don’t know how to treat currants against aphids, or you don’t have tops, then you can use onion skins. To do this, the scales should be infused in 10 liters of water. For this amount of liquid you should take about 200 g of raw material. A decoction from the plant helps well. To prepare it, you need the green mass of the plant in the amount of 1 kg (the raw materials must be dried). It should be boiled in a small amount of water for about 15 minutes. Then the mixture must be cooled and strained. In addition, the resulting liquid must be diluted with water (10 l) and soap (40 g). It is now ready to use. These are all the answers to the question of how to fight aphids on currants.

Ugly swellings and growths on red currant leaves look like a disease at first glance, but it worked gall aphid. Feeding on the juices of the plant, it causes its deformation - traces of vital activity look like healed wounds. The worst thing is that the voracious and prolific insect prefers young shoots, and, therefore, harms not only the current condition of the bush, but also reduces the chances of good harvest in future.

The accumulation of redcurrant aphids on the underside of the leaf leads to the formation of galls

Description of the insect, its harmfulness

The leaf gall aphid is one of 4 thousand species of the aphid family that live on the planet. The distribution area of ​​the redcurrant pest is Europe, the Caucasus, Siberia, Central Asia, and is currently found wherever this berry bush is grown.

The food supply and host plant for the species is the red and white currant, can sometimes slightly colonize black currants. As a facultative (intermediate) plant, it uses herbs of the Lamiaceae family. In the second half of summer or if the colony is overcrowded, aphids colonize mint, sage, oregano, thyme, and lavender growing nearby, and they are very fond of thyme.

In structure and appearance, gall aphids are similar to their many relatives. small insect ovoid in shape reaches a length of no more than 2–2.3 mm. The majority of representatives are wingless; winged individuals appear in later generations. Among the differences are a pale, greenish-yellow, almost transparent cover, as well as the presence of small hairs on the body, which is why it is also called hairy.

During the season, from 4 to 19 generations of the insect develop - the warmer the region, the more. It is its fertility that aggravates its harmfulness. One single founder aphid gives life to tens, or even hundreds of thousands of sucking pests. What is the extent of damage from gall aphids that have settled on currants?

• By sucking out the juices, it depletes the shoots. To “heal” wounds, the plant produces special tissues that form growths at the site of damage - galls. If aphids are not controlled, they will spawn new generations and live on the branches until they dry out.
• Attracts other pests to the garden, such as ants. Not only do they “graze” aphids, protect their entomophages, and contribute to their spread, but they themselves also feed on the juice of strawberries or grapes.
• Gall aphids can be carriers of pathogens viral infections plants.

Young shoots infected with aphids, even after the destruction of the pest, lag behind in growth, take a long time to recover, and therefore their productivity decreases.

Note! Thunderstorm of aphids - entomophagous insects, in particular ladybugs, lacewings, hoverflies. But if the colony is guarded by ants, they will not let them get close.

"Family" hierarchy of gall aphids

The life cycle of leaf gall aphids is characterized by the phenomenon of polyformism. This means that different generations of an insect may differ not only in appearance, but also in their performance. different functions. What does the hierarchy of aphids look like throughout the growing season and full cycle transformations?

1. The founder aphid hatches from an egg. She is the “foremother” of all generations that will appear during the season. This is a parthenogenetic individual, and is also viviparous, i.e. it gives birth to ready-made insects and only females, which in turn produce the next generation of offspring.
2. Virgin aphids represent the bulk of gall aphids that we observe on currants. They do not have wings, so the insects are constantly on the host plant; parthenogenetic females give birth to their own kind.
3. Dispersal aphids are a winged generation; they perform a slightly different function. When a colony grows or becomes depleted food base, they fly to a new place and establish the next settlement.
4. Aphids are a transitional generation of insects that produce females capable of laying eggs and males.
5. Female aphids and male aphids are a bisexual generation that provides wintering for the species. Founder aphids emerge from eggs laid in the bark of currant stems in the spring.

How does the pest develop?

The leaf gall aphid lays its eggs under the bark of red currant branches, closer to the buds. Here it is depending on climate zone And weather conditions can be up to 9 months. In the spring, as soon as the buds begin to bloom, the foundresses emerge from the eggs and populate the plant.

Active reproduction of the insect begins from the moment the bush blooms. The peak of harmfulness occurs in June, when the colony reaches its maximum size. In the second half of summer, currant leaves become coarser, and aphids begin to spread to intermediate plants. Several more generations of the pest feed on them. Here a bisexual generation appears, which will return to the currants to lay eggs. This happens closer to autumn.

Ways to control leaf aphids on currants

An attentive gardener will not miss the appearance of gall aphids on currants; he will immediately take adequate control measures. It is important to notice the deformation of young leaves at the initial stage of the growing season. On them, galls look like small red spots. In addition, the presence of the pest last season - serious reason start preventive measures on the bush as early as possible.

Prevention of infection of berry bushes

In order not to rack your brains about how to get rid of gall aphids, you can try to prevent their appearance. What is recommended to do for this?

1. In early spring, before the buds open, or in the fall, after leaf fall, spray the bushes and tree trunk area with a solution of nitrafen. The drug is harmful to the leaves (it burns them), so treatment should not be delayed. Its advantage is that it destroys the eggs of wintering pests. For currants, use a 3% solution (30 ml/l of water). To treat an adult bush you will need approximately 0.5 liters.
2. To protect the berry garden from insects from outside, for example, from neighbors, it is recommended to plant it next to berry bush plants with a pungent odor - calendula, marigolds, chamomile.
3. Destroy weeds in the garden, especially nettle (another name is dead nettle). This perennial weed is an intermediate host for the gall aphid, for which it will thank you.

Advice! One of the options for destroying gall aphid eggs, which can be found in the literature, is scalding the bush with boiling water in the spring. Only one’s own experience can show how effective this is.

Mechanical method

At the initial stage of infection, mechanical removal of shoots with a colony of pests is recommended. The bush is carefully inspected, all branches with the slightest deformation of the leaves are cut out. If at least a few individuals remain, they will quickly reproduce again. The cut shoots must be disposed of, preferably burned. This control method gives a good effect when combined with treatment with natural insecticides.

Advice! Along with young growth, the insect is very fond of fatty shoots. At spring pruning First of all, remove the wen from the bush, cut out all the excess shoots.

Spraying with natural insecticides: recipes

Some plants contain large quantities fungicides, pyrethrins, and other substances that have a destructive effect on gall aphids, so they are widely used to combat the pest. To enhance negative impact It is recommended to add soap to infusions, which envelops the insect and blocks its access to oxygen (aphids breathe through the skin). Here are the recipes for several popular infusions.

1. Based on tobacco dust. To prepare a bucket of infusion you will need 300 g of herbal preparation. It is poured with boiling water and left for 2-3 days. The settled solution is filtered, 100 g of laundry soap dissolved in water is added. You can also use tar soap or other liquid detergent, for example, for dishes.
2. Infusion of marigolds. For the infusion, take half a bucket of crushed flowers and fill them with 10 liters hot water and insist for 48 hours. Add 50 g of liquid soap to the finished strained infusion.
3. Infusion of mustard powder. To prepare 10 liters of working solution you will need 25 g of dry mustard. First, prepare a concentrate - pour mustard powder with a liter of boiling water and leave for 2 days. Then it is brought to full volume, soap is added.

Biochemical method of struggle

When the gall aphid has already multiplied, to combat it you cannot do without chemicals. Considering the toxicity and shelf life of toxic components in plant tissues, it is recommended to spray currants with insecticides at the budding stage, and a second time after harvesting. A long-term effect is achieved by spraying with Calypso, Confidor Maxi, Aktelik, Vofatox, Proteus.

In addition to chemical insecticides, a modern “herbal pharmacy” offers biological drugs, harmless to humans and domestic animals. They are made from spore bacteria, fungal components, and viruses. Getting into the body of an insect with food, they affect intestinal tract, paralyzing and destroying it. Examples of such drugs are Avertin, Actofit, Bitoxibacillin.

Fighting aphids on currants: