Sorrel pests: how to process and what to do, the fight against them with folk remedies

Pests and diseases of sorrel can cause significant damage to tasty and he althy greens, which are among the first to appear on our table in spring. Most often, tender leaves are spoiled by leaf-eating insects, which leave numerous holes. With improper care, sorrel suffers from various fungal infections. To save the beds from adversity, you need to identify the pest and carry out insecticidal or fungicidal treatment. And proven folk methods will help in this.

Causes of holes on sorrel

Sorrel is a relatively resilient crop that is bypassed by many agricultural pests. However, there are those who are not averse to eating delicious greens. The reason for the appearance of holes on the sorrel are:

• leaf beetle;
• Medvedka;
• aphid;
• slugs;
• winter scoop;
• sorrel sawfly.

When holes are found on the leaves, the pest should be identified and the sorrel should be treated with any of the available folk methods. All recipes for such a “treatment” are absolutely safe for human he alth, so greens can be safely eaten just a few days after spraying.

But the same cannot be said about chemical insecticides. Ready-made insecticides should be used only in extreme cases, when safe methods have proven ineffective. After spraying with chemicals, sorrel cannot be used in cooking for 3-4 weeks: the waiting period and the beginning of the next harvest depends on the toxic component, and is always indicated on insecticide packages.

Important! 2-3 days after chemical treatment, sorrel greens should be cut and disposed of, and then wait for a new crop. However, it will grow quite quickly.

Sorrel pests and ways to protect against them

Pest control methods include manual collection of adults, setting traps, spraying with formulations prepared according to folk recipes.

Leaf beetle

If small bugs of black-green shiny color and 5-10 millimeters in size are found on a perforated sorrel, it means that leaf beetles attacked the bed. They hibernate in the ground, and with the advent of spring, they begin to actively breed and eat crispy greens. A favorite place for laying eggs is the reverse side of the leaves. In one season, females make 2-3 clutches, thereby increasing the number of pests exponentially.

Advice! As a preventive measure against a leaf beetle attack, it is useful to plant pyrethrum bushes (Persian, maiden or Dalmatian chamomile) next to the sorrel beds. This unpretentious perennial will decorate the summer cottage and scare away insatiable pests.

There are several ways to fight the leaf beetle:

1. Sprinkle 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.
2. Sprinkle the sorrel with a soapy-garlic solution. To do this, dissolve the shavings of one bar of laundry soap (72%) in 3 liters of water, add chopped cloves, tops or green arrows of garlic, leave for 10-12 hours, strain and use as directed. After that, sorrel can be eaten already for 2-3 days, only before serving it should be thoroughly washed.
3. Treat the leaves with a "burning" mixture. Combine 1 cup of wood ash, 1 tablespoon of dry mustard powder and the same amount of freshly ground black pepper (it is better to grind peppercorns yourself).

To avoid problems with pests in the future, it is recommended to dig sorrel beds every autumn to a depth of 20 centimeters and do not forget about weed removal.

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 a crop is to remove weeds in a timely manner. It is useful to transplant sorrel every year to a new place or to treat the area with lime: pest larvae live only in acidic soil and are not able to exist in an alkaline environment.

Medvedka

If the sorrel bushes began to dry out, and under mechanical action - easily pulled out of the ground, it means that the most malicious pest of garden plants has wound up in the garden. But there are several effective folk remedies against Medvedka:

1. Pour 1-2 liters of soap solution into the hole of the bear, catch and neutralize the insect that jumped out.
2. Dig into a tunnel dug in the ground, a half-liter glass jar with the neck up. Moving along the usual route, the pest will certainly end up at the bottom of the trap.
3. In the area with sorrel, close up the crushed eggshell, flavored with fragrant sunflower oil. Such a "delicacy" will be fatal for the bear, but will serve as fertilizer for plants.
4. Plant chrysanthemums, coriander, basil, marigolds or marigolds between rows.
5. Water the sorrel with infusion of onion peel.

If none of the above methods helped to get rid of the bear, you will have to resort to a radical method - use chemical insecticides (Phenaksin plus, Rembek, Boverin, Medvecid, Anti Medvedka).

Naked Slugs

Slugs leave not only holes, but also silvery marks on sorrel leaves. Single pests are easy to collect by hand or lure into a "beer" trap - any low container with poured beer or other fermented drink.

You can protect greens from pests in other ways:

1. Scatter narrow strips of wood ash, broken eggshells, lime or superphosphate between rows.
2. Spray sorrel with ammonia (10%).
3. In the evening, put a metal sheet or a wooden board on moist soil, and in the morning collect crawling slugs from the underside of the trap.

Naked slugs love to hide under plant debris, so it is important to remove excess organic matter from the garden in time.

Aphid

The aphid colony sucks the juices from the sorrel, causing the greens to wilt, the roots to weaken, and the culture to die. To get rid of small black or green bugs, it is enough to spray the area once or several 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 shavings of laundry soap (72%): 1-2 treatments with this composition will rid the garden of aphids for a long time.

Winter Owl

Prevention of the appearance of winter scoops - autumn digging of the site 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 chopped chopped leaves with water and leave for 72 hours.

To get rid of voracious scoop caterpillars, namely, they gnaw huge holes on the leaves, you need to spray 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. Trapped cutworms will no longer be able to lay eggs and give birth to a new generation of voracious caterpillars.

Sorrel Sawfly

2-3 generations of the sorrel sawfly, which appear during the summer, attack the sorrel and eat its juicy foliage, can leave only solid veins from the garden by autumn.If the sawfly caterpillars 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. Spraying frequency - 1 time per week.

Cure disease herbs

There are recipes for every sorrel disease. The list of ailments affecting leafy 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 ways to fight.

Powdery mildew

The main symptoms of the disease: a whitish-gray coating on the surface of the leaf plates, which darkens with time and becomes brown. Leaves severely affected by the fungus turn black and die, and sorrel bushes weaken and freeze in winter. You can get rid of a harmful fungus by spraying with various compounds:

1. Dilute whey with cold water in a ratio of 1:10.
2. Pour a bucket of crushed weeds with hot water so that it covers all the vegetation. Ferment for several days, strain and use to process sorrel.
3. 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, 5-7 days apart.

Prevention of the spread of powdery mildew, as well as other fungal diseases, is the observance of crop rotation, the timely removal of plant residues, fertilizing with phosphorus and potash fertilizers.

Downy mildew

Peronosporosis, as downy mildew is also called, can be identified by the numerous yellow spots covering sorrel leaves.From the underside of the greenery, you can see a gray-purple coating. Symptoms of the disease usually appear in June. Only ready-made fungicides are able to 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 to 3 parts water).

White spotting

This fungal disease is manifested by numerous dark spots, the center of which turns white over time. It is very difficult to save the sorrel, completely covered with white spots. The easiest way is to mow and burn diseased greens, treat the beds with Bordeaux liquid (1%) or any ready-made fungicide.

Rust

Signs of rust are yellow-orange swollen spots (pustules) that affect the petioles and leaves of sorrel.When cracked, fungus spores spill out of them, similar to rust-colored powder. Reddening of sorrel should be a signal to fight rust, and a mixture of copper (5 grams) vitriol, 100 grams of laundry soap shavings and 5 liters of water will help in this. The composition must be sprayed onto the beds every day for a week, doing 2 treatments 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. You need to use it daily for 7 days.

Ovulariasis

This fungal disease affects only sorrel. When infected, gray-brown or yellow-brown spots appear on the surface of the leaves with a dark purple border around the edges. Gradually, the spots increase in size, merge and lead to the drying of the leaves. It will not be possible to save the crop with ovulariasis: you will have to cut and dispose of diseased greens, and treat the beds with Fitoverm or another suitable fungicide.After he althy leaves grow back, sorrel will be quite edible.

Grey 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. With a slight degree of damage, 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 damage to gray rot, you will have to spray the beds with Bordeaux liquid or chemical fungicides.

Advice! If alternative methods are 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 he alth, but harmful to pathogenic fungi and their spores.

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