Turnip pests and their control: how to treat with folk remedies and chemicals

The reason for the withering of turnips and other cruciferous plants is often the attack of harmful fungi and insects. Unfortunately, turnip pests are a fairly common problem in summer cottages. Under favorable conditions, they can damage plants and even destroy the entire crop. What diseases affect cruciferous crops and how to deal with them? First things first.

Pests of turnips and their control

Turnip belongs to the cruciferous crops, which are famous for their tasty and juicy root crops. Unfortunately, not only people prefer to feast on them, but also harmful insects.

To protect the garden, it is important to pay attention to the condition of the plants and take effective measures when any living creatures are found on them. Below is a list of insects that often attack turnips and other cruciferous plants.

Cabbage

This is a yellowish white butterfly with black dots on its wings. An adult does not do much harm to turnips. More often, it is the larvae that cause problems to the gardener. At one time, cabbage can lay from 300 to 600 eggs on turnip leaves. Under favorable conditions, after 10-14 days they turn into voracious caterpillars that destroy plants by eating the juicy pulp of young leaves.

In order to preserve the harvest, it is necessary to combine several methods of processing the area from cabbage:

Mechanical (manual collection of tracks).
Biological (attracting birds that eat pests).
Chemical (spraying with insecticides and biologicals).

Cruciferous fleas

If the turnip foliage has acquired an openwork appearance, then the plant has been attacked by cruciferous fleas. Black jumping bugs belong to the leaf beetle family and attack all cruciferous plants - turnips, cabbages, swedes.

At the end of spring, insects finish wintering under the remains of fallen leaves and go outside to feed. The peak of their activity falls on sunny and hot days. At this time, fleas eat the foliage of cultivated plants especially intensively and are able to destroy a large amount of the crop.

Beetles are best destroyed with harmless insecticides (Bancol or Actellik) or with the help of folk remedies. The most effective and common folk ways:

Spraying with tobacco solution. To do this, take 100 grams of shag and pour 5 liters of boiled water. After cooling, 50 grams of grated soap is added to the solution. Turnip leaves are sprayed with a spray bottle after each watering.
Spraying with vinegar solution. 200 grams of vinegar is diluted with 10 liters of cool water. The leaves are sprayed with a spray bottle.

Turnip White

In appearance, the insect is similar to cabbage, but has a smaller size. Caterpillars that emerge from eggs and feed on tops or roots are considered harmful, which is extremely dangerous for turnips planted not only in a greenhouse, but also in open ground. The caterpillars are greenish-blue in color and have distinctive black dots all over.

Pests adapt to any weather conditions, and their life span is 20-30 days. This is enough to cause significant damage to the crop. To destroy harmful insects use:

Onion infusion. A liter container is filled with onion peel, poured with boiling water and infused for 3-5 days. After that, half of the grated soap is added to the infusion and the damaged plant is sprayed.
Ordinary wasps do an excellent job with the larvae of the turnip white. To attract the Salvation Army, you need to spray turnip beds with sweet water and wait until mother nature deals with the disease on her own.

Spring cabbage fly

One of the most dangerous pests that damages the main part of the plant - the root. The spring cabbage fly is similar to the common house fly, but the former has a characteristic stripe along the abdomen and is lighter in color.

Insects appear in early May and actively multiply on the leaves of the plant, in the upper layers of the soil. The danger is represented by their small larvae, which feed on the roots of young turnips, destroying the crop in the shortest possible time.

To prevent an insect attack, it is necessary to take preventive measures by digging the soil as early as early May. In this case, the larvae living in the soil will die. If small white caterpillars are found on the leaves, you need to treat the leaves with insecticides. Experienced gardeners consider Topaz, Rovikurt and Karbofoz ampoules to be the best remedies.

Summer cabbage fly

The summer fly appears in June-July and is a direct descendant of the spring one. However, the first generation is more tenacious, voracious and dangerous. Therefore, if the spring attack bypassed the garden, then less aggressive control methods can be used for summer pests. For example, folk remedies. Turnip leaves can be sprayed:

Tobacco solution.
Burdock solution (1 kilogram of crushed burdock leaves pour 5 liters of boiling water, leave for a day and add half of grated soap).
Copper sulfate (1 tablespoon per 10 liters of water).

Stem nematode

Small transparent nematode worms parasitize on any part of the plant. A factor contributing to the active development and reproduction of the parasite is increased soil moisture and decay in the garden. Pests affect not only cruciferous, but also berry bushes, greens.

It's hard to fight them, as small worms are sometimes elusive to the human eye. However, you can still notice their presence by certain signs:

Slow germination.
Sprouts, fruits and leaves are deformed and look unhe althy.
Yellow spots appear on the sheets.

The stem nematode is destroyed by treatment with aggressive poisons - BI-58 or Ruskamin.

Wireworms or clickers

Female click beetles are especially fertile and lay a large number of eggs. They hatch into larvae, which are called wireworms. They pose a great threat to the he alth of the turnip.

The body of wireworms is worm-like and has a brown color. The larvae feed on the pulp of the turnip and gnaw through it from different angles. Living in the ground, the pest does not disdain the rest of the plant - stems and roots. In some cases, the nutcracker larva destroys the entire crop even before the first shoots appear.

When planning agrotechnical pest control measures, you must follow the main rules - deep plowing in the fall and the destruction of weeds. If insects nevertheless appeared on the turnip, insecticide treatment is necessary in accordance with the instructions. Effective chemicals against wireworms - Taboo, Prestige and Aktara.

Garden Scoop

Shovels are moth-like polyphagous pests. There are about 100 species of these insects, but the garden scoop is the most dangerous for the garden. Caterpillars of garden scoops appear in the spring, and cause significant damage to the turnip crop. They completely eat the leaves, as well as the pulp of the fruit, gnawing deep holes in it.

To eliminate pests, gardeners often resort to the help of their natural enemies - frogs, wasps and sparrows. If they couldn't completely rid the garden of the scoops, they'll have to use a more reliable weapon - insecticides.

However, do not forget that it is important to spray at least a month before harvest. Otherwise, toxic substances remain on the plant that can harm human he alth.

Cabbage Scoop

Another malicious scoop. Despite the name, the pest devours not only cabbage leaves. Voracious larvae are not averse to eating fresh turnip leaves and even its pulp. Pest control methods are standard - weeding, insecticides (for example, Eurodim or Akiba), ethnomophages (frogs, wasps, birds).

How to prevent pests

The most effective method of pest control is to prevent their occurrence. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the state of landings and take some preventive actions:

Dig up the soil in the spring so that any harmful insects wintering in it die.
Timely deal with weeds that attract cabbage butterflies or scoops to the garden.
Apply mineral fertilizers.
In the immediate vicinity of the turnip, you need to plant wormwood, celery or marigolds. Their smell repels insects.
The beds are mulched with coarse wood chips or covered with dark non-woven fabric to prevent flying pests from laying their eggs on plant leaves.

Diseases of turnips and their control

In addition to being attacked by voracious insects, turnips and other cruciferous plants are attacked by fungi and harmful microorganisms. The most common diseases are:

White rot

Appears during the growing season or at high humidity during storage. A fluffy white coating forms on the turnip, which provokes rotting of the fetus. To combat white rot, you must follow the rules of watering, as well as cut off infected areas.

Grey Rot

The cause of infection is rotting in high humidity or poor garden hygiene. The fungus is dark gray in color and multiplies in plant debris. To protect turnips from gray rot, you need to store root crops in a dry place and do not overdo it with watering.

Black leg

Amazes young seedlings not only of turnips, but also of other crops. With the disease, the root neck of the plant softens and turns black, and the stem becomes thinner, forming a characteristic constriction. The development of the disease is facilitated by high humidity of the air and soil, the presence of a large amount of plant residues.

To get rid of the disease, it is necessary to disinfect the soil with bleach. Seedlings must not be allowed to thicken and soil compaction.

Peronosporosis

Affects leaves and roots. On the upper side of the leaves, yellow oily spots form, which grow and cause the death of the seedlings. The development of the disease is facilitated by prolonged heavy rainfall.

Infection persists on seeds and plant debris (therefore, they must be burned). An effective way to fight is to warm the seeds in hot (48-50 ° C) water for 20 minutes, followed by cooling in cold water and drying.

Cruciferous powdery mildew

Fungal infection is spread by insects and wind. The first symptom of dew is a powdery white coating on the leaves, petioles or shoots of the plant. The fungus attacks during sharp fluctuations in air temperature, and also if the gardener applies too large doses of nitrogen fertilizers, which reduces the turnip's immunity to harmful microorganisms.

The disease is treated with fungicides, which are sold in specialized stores. The best of them are Skor, Previkur, Switch, Vectra.