How to get rid of the Colorado potato beetle without chemistry?

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Potato and Colorado potato beetle

Despite their overseas origin, potatoes have long enjoyed great love in Ukraine. However, there is a reason. In addition to the excellent taste and numerous dishes that can be prepared from potatoes, its tubers are very useful for the body.
Potato tubers contain 18 essential amino acids, iodine, phosphorus, iron, calcium salts – so essential for human health. Fresh potato juice is used to treat stomach ulcers, gastritis, constipation, duodenal ulcer, problems with acidity in the stomach, skin burns.

Colorado potato beetle

The Colorado potato beetle – this world-famous – has become a real disaster for potato sites. Moreover, it was people who contributed to the massive dispersal of the striped pest around the planet. Even 140 years ago, in its homeland, in the mountainous regions of Mexico, this beetle was few in number and not particularly fertile. And absolutely did not eat wild potatoes. The Aztecs, unlike the Incas, did not cultivate potatoes. Colorado cultivated potatoes were introduced to European settlers during the colonization of the Wild West.
The leaves of cultivated potatoes contained substances that stimulate the laying of beetle eggs and increase the appetite of the larvae. After that, the beetle completely retrained for potatoes and gradually settled on all inhabited continents, following the potato. They say that so far only Great Britain has managed to avoid the pernicious invasion of these swallows.

Folk remedies for the Colorado potato beetle

Well, since we did not have a chance to live in those glorious times when Colorado beetles were not yet on our land, we will have to roll up our sleeves to effectively fight the Colorado beetle. The time has passed when chemical treatment was considered the best remedy for the Colorado potato beetle. Everyone understands that over time, these pesticides get onto the table and into the human body. Therefore, we will consider here the most effective and safe ways to deal with the striped infestation. To begin with, we tried to collect the most common folk remedies for combating the Colorado potato beetle without the use of chemistry.
Unfortunately, gardeners consider the most reliable way to control the Colorado potato beetle to collect beetles and larvae from plants by hand. To facilitate this laborious work, they come up with various tricks.
A folk remedy is to plant some old potatoes on the sidelines to attract the beetle and protect the main plantings For example: when the young potatoes grow a little in the beds, plant a few old tubers nearby. When they emerge, the young foliage will entice the beetles from the main plantings, and in a small area, it is easier to collect them for destruction. You can also use cans for traps. Potatoes cut into slices are soaked for a day in a strong urea solution (1 glass of urea per 1 liter of water) and then laid out in traps. It is necessary to change the poison weekly. Trap banks are dropped along the potato beds and checked every day.
Proven folk remedies for the Colorado potato beetle include wood ash, onion husks, and legumes. When planting potatoes, put a bean (or bean) and a handful of ash or onion husks in the hole with the tuber. This will not hurt the potatoes, on the contrary, it will serve as a top dressing, and the beetle should be scared away.
It is believed that walnut leaves help get rid of the Colorado potato beetle. Some gardeners simply collect walnut leaves in the fall and add them in drops in those beds where they are going to plant potatoes in the spring. Others insist on the leaves in water, filter, and spray the shoots with the resulting infusion.

Dusting potato bushes with wood ash or cornflour are considered a good remedy for the Colorado potato beetle. This should be done in the dew or immediately after rain (on wet foliage). Sprinkle fresh pine sawdust on the aisles.
Even experienced gardeners advise planting dill, calendula, nasturtium or peas, beans, and legumes between the beds with potatoes. These plants are believed to repel Colorado beetles.

treatment of potatoes with biological product Kaputt

It is also considered useful to spray potato beds with a decoction of dandelion and horsetail or wormwood (boil 200 grams of fresh herbs for 15 minutes in a bucket of water, cool, dilute half a liter of water in 10 liters of water).

Recently, mulching of potato beds with straw and foliage in autumn has been considered the best remedy for Colorado beetles. In the spring, potato tubers are laid out directly on this layer, and covered with another layer of mulch on top.
The Colorado potato beetle, overwintered in the ground, will not be able to overcome this dense layer and will die. Mulch, in turn, not only interferes with the growth of weeds but also retains moisture for potato shoots and is a habitat for praying mantises, ground beetles, predatory spiders that eat the Colorado potato beetle.

An effective means of controlling potato pests

We acknowledge that folk remedies for the Colorado potato beetle bring results, but we believe that the most effective means to get rid of the Colorado potato beetle without chemistry are biological products. And that’s why.
In our area, the Colorado potato beetle has very few natural enemies. Colorado is very toxic for most carnivorous animals. Therefore, only human efforts can prevent the beetle from multiplying.

Colorado potato beetle

Only one female beetle is capable of laying 350 – 1000 eggs.

At the same time, adults of the Colorado potato beetles are not on the surface of plants all summer. Some insects hide under the ground 5-7 times during the summer, while the rest feed. Then there is a change. Thus, the Colorado potato beetle manages to avoid total destruction. If an adult beetle hides in the ground in the fall, then it will calmly overwinter and will continue to reproduce in the spring.
Under these conditions, biotechnology has become a salvation for farmers. For example, Kaputt Insectoacaricide is derived from the activity of soil fungi Streptomyces avermitilis. The name of the biological product is based on its action. Insecticides are preparations made to combat insect pests, acaricides are agents for fighting ticks. It is the best remedy for the Colorado potato beetle and other pests such as herbivorous mites, lepidoptera larvae, and sawflies, open-sitting aphids, greenhouse whitefly, thrips, and others. Eating leaves treated with insectoacaricide, the Colorado potato beetle and its larva also swallow microorganisms.

Insectoacaricide Kaputt is the best remedy for the Colorado potato beetle

Getting into the intestine or on the surface of the parasite, the biological product infects the nervous system of the pests, causing paralysis, and then the death of insects.
Within 4-8 hours after treatment, insects stop feeding and die on 2-3 days. Mass death of parasites occurs on the 5-6th day.
For better “sticking” to the leaves, you can add shampoo or laundry soap to the solution. And after a week, it is advisable to repeat the treatment so that the beetles hiding in the ground during the treatment also get the poison. Insectoacaricide Kaputt is a much more reliable remedy for the Colorado potato beetle than herbal infusions, to which the pests become accustomed over time. At the same time, beneficial bacteria act very selectively and are absolutely harmless to bees, earthworms, and warm-blooded animals. The biological product will allow you to get rid of several types of pests at once with one means.

potato

Use the effective remedy for the Colorado potato beetle – biological product Kaputt and keep the ecological background of your site clean and safe.