How to get rid of caterpillars on currants

Red and black currants are the most beloved berries and popular shrubs with Russian gardeners. Due to the widespread spread of this culture, the number of pests on it is also large. Information on how to deal with caterpillars on currants with folk and chemical means will help prevent significant damage to the future harvest and get rid of the caterpillars.

Caterpillar Types and Damage

Currants love to eat a variety of harmful insects and their larvae, which are a transitional form between butterflies and pupae. Most caterpillars on currants come from eggs laid by females. For further growth they need food in the form of green mass of plants, which they vigorously absorb.

On a note!

You should be aware that the appearance of "harmless" and cute butterflies of different types near the bushes means they flew in to create the egg-laying. It is much easier to destroy them than to deal with the large numbers of caterpillars that emerged.

Currant Pests

Therefore, gardeners need to know what kind of butterflies and their larvae damage currant bushes:

• Currant kidney mole has a small size up to 16 mm in a wingspan with a fringe, painted in yellow-brown and gray-brown tones. She lays eggs inside young buds and ovaries, which then begin to dry out quickly. The caterpillars overwinter under the bark, and in the spring they climb up the branches and eat the buds from the inside. As they grow, they change color from red to green.Before the bushes bloom, the larvae burrow into the ground and pupate, to then appear as a moth. To combat the caterpillars on the currants used spraying bushes Karbofos.
• Gooseberry firing pin - a gray butterfly that begins to fly during the flowering bushes gooseberry and currants and lay eggs inside the flowers. Sometimes found on raspberry. The small caterpillars that have emerged from them eat currants: they produce webs, which envelop the berries and gnaw them. Damaged fruits quickly turn red and dry. Pupae overwinter in the upper layers of the soil near the bushes. To destroy them, it is necessary to do in the autumn hilling currant to a height of 15 cm, and planting themselves to treat insecticides twice: before and after flowering.
• Gall midges belong to the mosquito-like insects, the larvae of which eat around various plant tissues, forming galls in the form of swelling of the bark on the branches and other parts of the bush. Prefer blackcurrant planting. Caterpillars appear first in white, as they grow, they turn red and turn bright red. Hibernate in the larval stage in the surface layers of the earth.
• Gooseberry sawfly is a small black or yellow beetle, its green caterpillars on red currants devour the leaves so that only the veins are left from them. With a large number of larvae, the bush may remain without leaves at all. Then the pests are buried in the soil and pupate. After the departure of adult individuals, eggs are re-laid on the leaves, over the summer the number of generations reaches 3. To destroy the beetles and their larvae, it is recommended to conduct spraying with biological and chemical preparations before and after flowering.
• Shepherd - its adult individuals are butterflies of a light brown color, on the wings of which there are wavy stripes. Eggs they lay on the leaves. The emerged green or brown caterpillars with a black head actively gnaw young shoots. Then, with the help of a web produced, they are wrapped in a tube together with a leaf, where they live inside, feeding on vegetable juices. For the destruction of moth on currants It is recommended to manually cut off all the tubules with pests and burn them; it is recommended to treat the bushes with insecticide before flowering.
• Gooseberry moth looks like a big butterfly up to 5 cm in size with bright yellow wings. Damage almost all garden crops, including fruit trees (apple treespears). The egg-laying is done in June on the inner sides of the leaves. Its voracious caterpillars on currants completely eat the leaves along with the veins, preferring red and white varieties. They are painted in gray, and on the sides are yellow stripes. The first occurrence of caterpillars falls on the early spring, they are eaten by the very first young leaves. At the end of the summer, they make their nests from cobwebs, hiding in fallen leaves of trees. Treating bushes with Carbofos from the moth should be done in 2 steps: in April - during the release of the caterpillars, and from June to July, when butterflies begin to fly.
• Currant glass - its caterpillars settle inside the shoots of the bush, eating away their core. Such a pest is difficult to remove due to the fact that chemicals do not act on it. The glasshouse butterfly looks like a wasp; it has narrow wings and orange stripes. The insect makes egg-laying, starting from the second half of May and until mid-June, directly into the cracks of the bark of the plant or near the buds.After 2 weeks, the first caterpillars appear, which crawl inside the shoots, eating them from the inside and gradually moving down to the roots. Affected bushes begin to dry out.

On a note!

Get rid of the caterpillars on the currants. You can only cut the damaged branches and burning them. Partially save the bushes can be in the period of pupation of the glass (May-June), when the pests leave the stems and burrow into the soil. It is necessary to make a deep loosening with the addition of wood ash and tobacco dust, some advise to sprinkle the soil with a mixture composed of dry mustard, ash and black pepper, at the rate of 3 tbsp per bush.

Folk methods of dealing with caterpillars

Fighting caterpillars in folk ways

Each gardener should carefully inspect their plantings in time to detect damage to the leaves, drying out of branches or the appearance of twisted tubules. If pests are suspected and if they are small, it is recommended to fight with caterpillars on currants with folk remedies:

• plant garlic, chamomile, marigold, wormwood or yarrow around the currant bushes, the smells of which will scare away the pests;
• in the beginning of summer, when loosening the soil, add tobacco dust to the soil;
• prepare a decoction of celandine (similarly used yarrow and tansy), which will help destroy the caterpillars, and spray the bushes 1-2 times a week;
• Spraying the bushes with garlic infusion, which is prepared from 150 g of crushed cloves, filled with 1 liter of cold water, should be kept for 5 days in a dark place, and diluted with 10 ml of infusion per 1 liter of water before use;
• conduct processing spruce infusion for which you need 1 tbsp. pine needles and spruce and insist 7 days, before spraying the solution should be diluted in a ratio of 1:10;
• to process bushes in the first half of June with a soap solution: 30–40 g of household oil per 1 l of water;
• sprinkle with the infusion of tops of tomatoes or potatoes: 1 kg of leaves in a bucket of boiling water, cook for 0.5 h, add 40-50 g of soap;
• chop 100 g of hot pepper pods, add 1 l of water and boil for 1 hour, leave for 2-3 days, dilute the concentrated solution at the rate of 100 g per 10 l of liquid and add soap;
• likewise, an infusion is prepared from 50-60 g of mustard powder in 2 l of water, then it is drawn for 3 days, another 3 l is added and spraying is carried out.

On a note!

Same folk remedies are also suitable for cabbage and other vegetable crops.

Biological and chemical control agents

Biological agents against caterpillars

In order to quickly and effectively destroy the hordes of caterpillars that occupied the bushes, experts advise the use of insecticides. The choice of how to treat currants from caterpillars depends on the season and the condition of the bushes.

Many gardeners prefer biological products, the active substances of which do not penetrate the fruit and are not harmful to the crop. Spraying such means can be carried out not less than 3 weeks before the start of picking berries. Select the period before flowering or after it.

The most popular biological remedies for caterpillars on currants: Bitoxibacillin, Lepidocid, Fitoverm, Endobacterin, Nembact, etc.

On a note!

The high efficiency of bioinsecticides is based on the reproduction and destructive action of pathogenic fungi and viruses that infect the organism of pests.

Of the chemical insecticides used against such pests:

• 10% karbofos is used after swelling and disclosure of buds on a bush, but not more often than 2 times in summer, to destroy the bud moth;
• Spraying is carried out by means of Iskra-Bio, Fufanon, Karbofos (0.3%) in the period before flowering and after - against ophilia and sawfly;
• Karbofos 0.3% is used in April during the period of active growth of the kidneys and the first appearance of caterpillars, in June - after the departure of butterflies, which helps to get rid of the gooseberry moth;
• Spark or Fitoverm - currant is sprayed with the appearance of young foliage, which helps against the appearance of glass-case caterpillars;
• 10% Carbofos treatment of the bushes is carried out at the end of the harvest to destroy the glass case on the currants;
• insecticidal and biopreparations against the leaf-maker: Landing, Tod, Atom, Lepitsid (before flowering); Ivanhoe, Accord, Fatrin, Lepitsidid (at the end of flowering).

Important!

At the end of each season after picking berries, currant bushes carefully inspect, make sanitary pruning, remove dry and damaged branches and leaves, which are then burned.

For the prevention of the appearance of caterpillars in spring from under the soil, it is well dug up in the fall to dig up wintering larvae for freezing them, then mulch with a layer up to 15 cm - this will become an obstacle when insects leave the ground. Such measures will help get rid of a certain part of pests and reduce the number of caterpillars that prefer currant bushes for their lives.