Pests and diseases of sorrel can cause significant damage to tasty and healthy greens, which are among the first to appear on our table in the spring. Most often, delicate leaves are damaged by leaf-eating insects, which leave numerous holes. If not properly cared for, sorrel suffers from various fungal infections. To save the beds from harm, you need to identify the pest and carry out insecticidal or fungicidal treatment. And proven folk methods will help with this.
Reasons for the appearance of holes in sorrel
Sorrel is a relatively resilient crop that is avoided by many agricultural pests. However, there are those who are not averse to eating delicious greens. The reasons for the appearance of holes in sorrel are:
- leaf beetle;
- mole cricket;
- aphid;
- slugs;
- fall armyworm;
- sorrel sawfly.
If holes are found on the leaves, you should identify the pest and treat the sorrel using any of the available traditional methods. All recipes for such “treatment” are absolutely safe for human health, so greens can be safely eaten literally a few days after spraying.
But the same cannot be said about chemical insect control agents. Ready-made insecticides should be used only in extreme cases, when safe methods have proven to be ineffective. After spraying with chemicals, sorrel cannot be used in cooking for 3-4 weeks: the waiting period and the start of harvesting the next harvest depends on the poisonous component, and is always indicated on the packages with the insecticide.
Important! 2-3 days after treatment with chemicals, oxalum greens need to be cut and disposed of, and then wait for a new harvest. However, he will grow up quite quickly.
Sorrel pests and methods of protection against them
Methods of pest control include manual collection of adult individuals, installation of traps, and spraying with compositions prepared according to folk recipes.
Leaf beetle
If small bugs of a black-green shiny color and 5-10 millimeters in size are found on the perforated sorrel, it means that the garden bed has been attacked by leaf beetles. They overwinter in the ground, and with the arrival of spring they begin to actively reproduce and eat crispy greens.The favorite place for laying eggs is the underside of leaves. In one season, females make 2-3 clutches, thereby increasing the number of pests exponentially.
Advice! To prevent leaf beetle attacks, it is useful to plant pyrethrum bushes (Persian, maiden or Dalmatian chamomile) next to sorrel beds. This unpretentious perennial will decorate your summer cottage and repel insatiable pests.
There are several ways to fight the leaf beetle:
- Pollinate the leaves with a mixture of wood ash and tobacco dust. Take both components in equal proportions, mix and dust the culture daily for 4-5 days.
- Spray the sorrel with a soap-garlic solution. To do this, dissolve shavings of one bar of laundry soap (72%) in 3 liters of water, add crushed cloves, tops or green arrows of garlic, leave for 10-12 hours, strain and use as intended. After this, the sorrel can be eaten already on the 2-3rd day, only before serving it should be thoroughly washed.
- Treat the leaves with the “hot” mixture. Combine 1 cup of wood ash, 1 tablespoon of dry mustard powder and the same amount of freshly ground black pepper (it’s better to grind the peppercorns yourself).
To avoid problems with pests in the future, it is recommended to dig up sorrel beds every fall to a depth of 20 centimeters and do not forget about removing weeds.
Wireworms
The click beetle is not afraid of sorrel. But its thin caterpillars, up to 1.5 centimeters long, living in the ground and feeding on roots, cause significant harm to plants. The easiest way to save the crop is to remove weeds in a timely manner.It is useful to replant sorrel every year in a new place or treat the area with lime: the pest larvae live only in acidic soil and are not able to exist in an alkaline environment.
Medvedka
If the sorrel bushes begin to dry out and, under mechanical stress, easily pull out of the ground, it means that the most malicious pest of garden plants has appeared in the garden bed. But there are also several effective folk remedies against mole crickets:
- Pour 1-2 liters of soap solution into the mole cricket's hole, catch and neutralize the insect that jumps out.
- Dig a half-liter glass jar, neck up, into a tunnel dug in the ground. Moving along the usual route, the pest will certainly end up at the bottom of the trap.
- In the area with sorrel, cover with crushed eggshells flavored with aromatic sunflower oil. Such a “delicacy” will be destructive for mole crickets, but will serve as fertilizer for plants.
- Plant chrysanthemums, coriander, basil, marigolds or marigolds in the rows.
- Water the sorrel with infusion of onion peels.
If none of the above methods help get rid of the mole cricket, you will have to resort to a radical method - use chemical insecticides (Phenaxin plus, Rembek, Boverin, Medvecid, Anti Mole cricket).
Naked slugs
On sorrel leaves, slugs leave not only holes, but also silvery marks. Single pests can be easily collected by hand or lured into a “beer” trap - any low container filled with beer or other fermented drink.
You can protect greens from pests in other ways:
- Scatter narrow strips of wood ash, broken eggshells, lime or superphosphate between the rows.
- Spray the sorrel with ammonia (10%).
- In the evening, place a metal sheet or wooden board on the damp soil, and in the morning collect the crawling slugs from the underside of the trap.
Naked slugs like to hide under plant debris, so it is important to remove excess organic matter from the garden in a timely manner.
Aphid
A colony of aphids sucks the juices out of the sorrel, as a result of which the greenery withers, the roots weaken, and the crop dies. To get rid of small black or green bugs, it is enough to spray the area one or more times with any of the decoctions:
- tobacco;
- onion peel;
- garlic;
- tomato tops;
- burdock;
- dandelion
Sorrel beds can be dusted with tobacco dust or wood ash. An effective insecticidal agent is an infusion of ash, combined with dissolved laundry soap shavings (72%): 1-2 treatments with this composition will permanently rid the garden of aphids.
Fall armyworm
Preventing the appearance of winter cutworms is by digging up the site in the fall and timely removal of weeds. But if grayish-brown butterflies have already appeared on the sorrel leaves, reaching a length of 2-3 centimeters, spraying with burdock infusion will help. To prepare it, pour half a bucket of freshly picked crushed leaves with water and leave for 72 hours.
To get rid of the voracious cutworm caterpillars, namely they gnaw huge holes on the leaves, you need to spray the sorrel beds every other day for a week.
Adults can be caught using fragrant baits: hang open containers with sweet or fermented foods at a height of 1 meter from the ground. Cutworms caught in traps will no longer be able to lay eggs and give birth to a new generation of voracious caterpillars.
Sorrel sawfly
2-3 generations of sorrel sawfly, which appear during the summer, attack the sorrel and eat its succulent foliage, can leave only hard veins from the bed by autumn. If the sawfly caterpillars have managed to attack the crop, the easiest way is to spray the greens with a decoction of chamomile mixed with a solution of laundry soap. The frequency of spraying is once a week.
Treatment of grass diseases
There are recipes for each disease of sorrel. The list of diseases affecting leaf crops is long, but this does not mean that they all threaten to damage green beds at the same time. Each disease has its own characteristic signs and methods of control.
Powdery mildew
The main symptoms of the disease: a whitish-gray coating on the surface of the leaf blades, which darkens and turns brown over time. Leaves severely damaged by the fungus turn black and die, and sorrel bushes weaken and freeze in winter. You can get rid of harmful fungus by spraying with various compounds:
- Dilute the whey with cold water in a ratio of 1:10.
- Fill a bucket of chopped weeds with hot water so that it covers all the vegetation. Ferment for several days, strain and use to process sorrel.
- Pour half a glass of wood ash into 1 liter of boiling water, leave for 48 hours, add a little laundry soap to the solution. Spray twice, with an interval of 5-7 days.
Prevention of the spread of powdery mildew, as well as other fungal diseases, is compliance with crop rotation, timely removal of plant residues, and fertilizing with phosphorus and potassium fertilizers.
Downy mildew
Downy mildew, as downy mildew is also called, can be identified by the numerous yellow spots covering the leaves of sorrel. On the underside of the greenery you can see a gray-violet coating. Signs of the disease usually appear in June. Only ready-made fungicides can effectively fight infection: Vitaros, Skor, Previkur.
From folk recipes, you can try spraying the beds with a solution of dry mustard (1 tablespoon of powder per 5 liters of water) or rotted cow manure (1 part organic matter to 3 parts water).
White spot
This fungal disease manifests itself as numerous dark spots, the center of which turns white over time. It is very difficult to save a sorrel completely covered with white specks. The easiest way is to mow and burn diseased greenery, treat the beds with Bordeaux mixture (1%) or any ready-made fungicide.
Rust
Signs of rust are yellow-orange swollen spots (pustules) affecting the petioles and leaves of sorrel. When they crack, fungal spores spill out, looking like rust-colored powder. The redness of sorrel should be a signal to fight rust, and a mixture of copper (5 grams) sulfate, 100 grams of laundry soap shavings and 5 liters of water will help with this. The composition should be sprayed onto the beds every day for a week, making 2 applications per day.
A solution of potassium permanganate obtained from 5 grams of potassium permanganate and 10 liters of water is also suitable as a fungicide. It must be used daily for 7 days.
Ovulariasis
This fungal disease affects only sorrel. When infected, gray-brown or yellow-brown spots with a dark purple border along the edges appear on the surface of the leaves.Gradually, the spots increase in size, merge and lead to drying of the leaves. It will not be possible to save the crop in case of ovulariasis: you will have to cut and dispose of the diseased greenery, and treat the beds with Fitoverm or other suitable fungicide. After healthy leaves grow, the sorrel will be quite suitable for food.
Gray rot
The main symptom of the disease is a gray “fluffy” coating on the surface of the leaves. It appears at low air temperatures and high soil moisture. If the damage is minor, it is recommended to spray the sorrel with a solution prepared from 1 cup of wood ash, 1 cup of ground chalk, 1 teaspoon of copper sulfate and 10 liters of water.
In case of severe gray rot infestation, you will have to spray the beds with Bordeaux mixture or chemical fungicides.
Advice! If traditional methods turn out to be ineffective against fungal infections, you will have to purchase biofungicides (Fitosporin-M, Planriz, Gamair, Alirin-B, Trichodermin, Pseudobacterin-2) and apply according to the instructions. These preparations contain live bacteria that are safe for human health, but harmful to pathogenic fungi and their spores.
