Before the new planting season begins, it’s a good idea to talk about who is eating the cucumber seedlings in the greenhouse. Not only we humans enjoy eating crispy cucumbers; rodents, insects, and worms love to feast on this plant. You can lose all your seedlings in one night and not know who did it.
Who eats cucumber seedlings in the garden
Greenhouse owners will agree that the main pests of cucumbers that affect adult plants and seedlings are whiteflies, wireworms, mole crickets, slugs, and fall armyworm caterpillars.
How to protect cucumbers from mole crickets
Cucumbers suffer from mole crickets both in open ground and in greenhouses. The pest is especially widespread in central Russia. It is possible that you have a mole cricket if cucumber seedlings or already grown plants dry out.
Sexually mature individuals - adults - overwinter deep in the ground. In early spring, pests wake up and lay eggs in their nests. There can be up to 500 of them in one clutch. Adults and their larvae damage the roots of cucumbers. They are attracted to cucumber beds with seedlings by moist, loose soil; pests make many moves in the ground. During the day, the pest sits in holes, and at night it eats the roots of cucumber seedlings.
To prevent the mole cricket from eating the seedlings, traps are made from manure. Fresh manure is the favorite delicacy of this pest. Trap pits measuring 50 by 50 cm are dug in the fall and filled with cow manure. When the temperature reaches below zero, the manure is taken out and scattered on the ground. The mole crickets are sleeping at this time, so they do not move and freeze.
You can protect newly planted cucumbers from pests with kerosene. To repel the pest, piles of branches or boards are laid out around the ridge and generously watered with kerosene. The mole cricket moves away from the fragrant beds. For those who prefer chemicals to protect seedlings, insecticides are suitable: “Thunder”, “Phenaxin”, “Grizzly”. Baits are prepared from them.
Who cuts the seedlings
A problem that many summer residents face: the cucumber seedlings, which were vigorously greening in the greenhouse just yesterday, have disappeared today. Stumps stick out of the ground, and cotyledon leaves lie nearby. Unknown pests chew through the stem and snack right at ground level.
It is difficult to determine who has eaten the cucumber shoots, since it could be a wireworm or a cockchafer larva.Gray cutworm caterpillars often gnaw young stems of cucumbers; they can be found if you dig up the ground next to a dead plant.
May beetle larvae should be collected while digging the ridge before planting cucumbers. Treat the sprouted plants with onion or garlic infusion; the worms do not like them. Chemicals are more reliable means of controlling pests (khrushchev). To get rid of it, you can safely recommend the following medications to summer residents:
- Nemabact;
- Aktara;
- Antikhrushch.
Wireworm
Wireworms are found in most regions located in the temperate climate zone. Wireworm is called click beetle larva, living in the soil for a long time (2-5 years). In the second year of life, the larva eats the roots of the plant, leading to its death.
The wireworm, thanks to its dense chitinous cover, can easily penetrate the stems of adult cucumbers. The main vine of the cucumber, in which the wireworm has settled, becomes bent over time and gradually dries out.
You can reduce the number of pest larvae using traps. They are arranged in the spring in thawed soil, seasoned with chopped vegetables. To save cucumbers, the drug “Bazudin” is buried along the perimeter of the ridges; it is released in powder form.
Fall armyworm
The winter armyworm is a large (up to 2 cm) butterfly with a wingspan of about 5 cm; it lays eggs on any plants, including cucumber seedlings. If the stem of the seedlings at ground level has become thin or a stump sticks out of the ground instead, it means that the young cucumbers in the greenhouse are being destroyed by the fall armyworm caterpillar.
Caterpillars can reach a length of 5 cm, they are brown or dark gray (almost black) in color. Voracious pests live in the soil, eat underground parts of plants, and primarily damage the roots.To protect the root part from the cutworm, you need to add one of the following preparations to the holes before planting the cucumbers:
- Initiative;
- Zemlin;
- Bazudin.
As a preventive measure, when digging the soil, select and destroy caterpillars and larvae. Removing weeds is also an effective preventive measure against the fall armyworm and its larvae.
Who eats the seedlings
The real scourge of greenhouses has become the whitefly - a butterfly with a pale yellow body 0.9-1.1 mm long, the surface of two pairs of wings is covered with white pollen. The seedlings are eaten by butterfly larvae; their flat-round body is covered with small spines.
The female survives winter at temperatures of -12 °C. During the season, 10 or more generations of whiteflies can appear from one individual. The pest destroys cucumber seedlings and oppresses adult plants: the larvae suck out the juice, and the adults carry a fungal infection. It is very difficult to kill whiteflies.
You can determine that a whitefly is feasting on your cucumber by the following signs:
- white dots are visible on the leaves;
- sticky discharge is noticeable on the stem surface;
- cucumbers have curled leaves;
- on the lower surface of the cucumber leaf blade, larvae resembling scales are visible;
- If you shake the cucumber vine, white moths will appear.
How to protect seedlings from whiteflies
Protecting seedlings begins long before they are planted in the greenhouse. Every autumn, after harvesting, it is necessary to treat the soil and greenhouse structures with sulfur bombs, having previously cleared the ridges of plant residues. It is better to set fire to checkers at night. Remove the top layer of soil (5-7 cm) along with the pest larvae from the greenhouse.
You can speed up the destruction of the pest on cucumbers using homemade traps; for this you need to have the following on hand:
- castor oil (1 tsp);
- rosin (1 hour);
- honey (1 hour);
- Vaseline (1 hour).
Add the remaining ingredients to the heated rosin and mix everything. When the mixture has cooled, spread it on long strips of paper and hang the resulting strips in the greenhouse. The pest control system can be expanded using folk recipes or chemicals.
Among the folk methods, recipes for infusions are useful, the active component of which can be:
- garlic;
- dandelion roots;
- yarrow.
To prevent the pest from eating fragile cucumber stems, treat with infusions at least once every 10 days. For those who do not trust traditional methods, chemistry will come to the rescue. Summer residents fight whiteflies with the help of drugs:
- Aktellik;
- Fufanon;
- Biotlin.
Slugs on cucumber seedlings
In the humid climate of greenhouses, slugs reproduce well; they can be found in almost any region of the European part of the country. The insect has no limbs, its surface is completely covered with mucus, it looks like a snail without a shell.
The active life of the pest begins at night; during the day it hides at a depth of 8 cm. At night, slugs gnaw through the lashes and leaves of cucumbers, and tender, young shoots are the first to suffer. The pest is very voracious and eats most of the leaves. When the fruiting period begins, slugs eat the ovaries and begin to gnaw on large cucumbers. A large percentage of your crop can be lost to slugs.
What to do to reduce the number of slugs in the greenhouse, each summer resident decides individually.Some people prefer to place baits made from tomato tops, lettuce leaves and cucumbers around the perimeter of the ridge against pests. Plant debris should be periodically destroyed along with slugs and replaced with new ones. Some pests can be removed by hand.
The pest has a very delicate abdomen; they will not climb into the beds with cucumbers if the entire perimeter is filled with any material from the list around them:
- sawdust;
- needles;
- coarse sand;
- nut shell;
- broken shells.
The most popular chemical preparation against slugs is “Thunderstorm”; it lasts for 3 weeks. During the season, at least 2 treatments will be required for pests. Another drug, “Slug Eater,” is used once during the summer; its effect is shorter and lasts only 2 weeks. The preparations are in the form of granules; they need to be laid out not only along the border of the ridge, but also between the bushes.
Aphid
Seedlings may die due to aphids if they used soil taken from the garden for planting and did not treat it against pests and diseases. Aphids are very prolific; up to 20 generations of the pest appear over the summer. Optimal conditions for active reproduction of the pest are high humidity and air temperature from 25 °C.
Aphids suck the juice from the leaves, petioles and stems of the cucumber. You can fight the pest using traditional methods. When the cucumber seedlings are still small, you can simply wash them with soapy water. It is difficult to wash adult bushes, so prepare an herbal infusion with the addition of soap and spray the leaves and bushes against pests.
Who eats the seeds
The larva of the sprout fly causes great damage to cucumbers. All pumpkin crops suffer from this pest. Many summer residents complain about poor germination when sowing seeds.In some cases, the problem is in the seed, but if it is impossible to find its remains in the hole, this means that someone is eating all the cucumber seeds.
The seeds are eaten by germ fly larvae. This insect is gray in color, its body reaches 5 mm in length, and the pest's years begin in the spring. The fly lays its clutches in damp places and prefers to lay them on manure that is poorly embedded in the soil. Larvae appear within 10 days; over the summer, up to 3 generations of the pest can appear.
To prevent the spread of germ flies, simple measures are sufficient:
- dig the soil deeply;
- carefully embed the manure into the soil.
On the advice of experienced gardeners, the drug “Ant” can neutralize the larvae; when you plant seeds, you need to mix it with the soil and sprinkle it on the surface of the hole.
Information about pests and methods of combating them will help you take the necessary measures in time to save cucumber seedlings.
