Pests of pepper seedlings and methods of dealing with them

The most common reason The deaths of young plants are harmful insects that carry the disease. Pest seedling pests destroy plantings very quickly, so you need to deal with them in a timely manner.

Pest seedling pests and methods for controlling them

Where do the pests come from

Most often, pests and diseases are introduced through poor-quality soil and seed, not passing processing.

Types of pests and methods for controlling them

There are a huge number of insects that feed on juices, rhizomes and ovaries of peppers. Consider the most common pests of seedlings of pepper.

Aphids

Aphids – an insect that, gathering in a colony, settles on almost all indoor, garden plants and seedlings. It is small in size green or dark gray. Her body is protected by a chitinous shell.

The insect’s mouth is designed to pierce tender young leaves, but the rough shell is too tough for her, so the colonies prefer to settle on the tops of the pepper.

Aphids suck out juices from plants, and it wilts, discards leaves, stops growing.

At the first signs of the appearance of a sticky layer on the underside of the leaves, urgent measures should be taken to control pests of pepper seedlings. Another sign of the presence of insects is twisting of the upper leaves.

In the fight against aphids, plants are sprayed with infusion of wormwood, onion and garlic husk. These odorous solutions repel pests for a long time. You can also wash off insects with a normal stream of water, but this method is more suitable for grown seedlings.

Wireworm

Another wireworm pest is a wireworm. It causes no less harm to landings. The insect infects the root of the plant itself and the underground part of the stem. It slowly kills the seedling. It lags behind in growth or may die at all.

The danger is represented by beetle larvae. They are small in size, with a rigid body. These creatures live at a depth of 10-15 cm underground and are recorded in the seedling box only with the substrate. To prevent the appearance of the pest, the soil is calcined before planting.

The soil is watered with a strong solution of potassium permanganate, but it is best to purchase a substrate for growing pepper seedlings. There are no pests in such soil, its composition is completely balanced.

Spider mite

Damage to seedlings by the spider mite is immediately noticeable. Whitish or almost transparent cobwebs appear on the plant. They wrap the earth in a seedling box, and eventually spread to the entire plant.

Spider mites are carriers of many diseases. They feed on plant juices and thereby weaken it, and also infect peppers with viral diseases.

Manually removing cobwebs is not enough, you need to deal with the cause of its appearance. The infusion can cope with this well, for the manufacture of which you will need:

• tobacco (you can use the one that is in cigarettes);
• whey;
• wood ashes.

All the ingredients are mixed and insisted for several days in a cool place, periodically shaking the container. After the liquid is sprayed on the plants and the earth around them. If seedlings are grown in an apartment, it is worth processing pots with indoor plants.

Whitefly

Get rid of insects as soon as possible

This small winged insect causes significant damage to plants growing in greenhouses. It is difficult to see them with the naked eye. To check, the seedling needs to be shaken slightly, then they will become noticeable.

The presence of whiteflies in the greenhouse can be detected by the presence of yellow spots on the surface of the leaves. They are a bit like sunburns, but even after shading they continue to increase in size. There is also a whitish coating on the underside of the plate.

This pest of sweet pepper is afraid of infusion of wormwood, garlic and yarrow.Also, the front sight reacts strongly to a sharp change in temperature. On a hot day, it is recommended to pour sweet pepper seedlings with cold water: pests often disorient and fall to the ground. At this stage, the flies are sprinkled with a layer of soil.

If there are too many whiteflies in the greenhouse, fighting them with folk remedies is useless. It is necessary to use pesticides: Fitoverm, Vertimek, Pegasus, Talstar, Actara, Intavir.

Thrips

If silver spots appeared on the seedlings of sweet pepper, which constantly increase in size, the reason for this is a small butterfly. This insect has an unusual name – thrips.

They fall into the ground when fertilizing with organic waste, as well as fresh mullein. Insects multiply rapidly, and the entire colony feeds on pepper juices. This depletes the plants, leading them to a halt in growth and death.

Since butterflies cannot pierce the surface of adult leaves, they feed on the apical bud and young leaves.

Fight with thrips is recommended by spraying plantings with a solution of whey and garlic. Powder dusting with wood ash is also used.

Medvedka

This underground pest damages the roots of the pepper and leads to its death. Medvedka gets into the ground from manure, which fertilizes the beds. She also loves compost heaps where she lays eggs. A pest may come from another area.

It is easy to detect the pest along the paths in the soil. It is useless to try to catch a bear, because the period of its activity is night time.

To fight it, they make odorous baits with poison. For this, the hard-boiled chicken egg yolk is mixed with onion fried in vegetable oil. Poison is added there (any drug from the Colorado potato beetle, but in a strong concentration)

Small balls are formed from the mixture and laid out around the perimeter of the plot, as well as near the passages. Do not be afraid that the bait will be eaten by animals, since the poison is not dangerous for mammals.

Prevention

Many pests not only damage the shell of the pepper and eat its juices, but also infect it with various diseases.This speeds up the death of landings.

It is easier to prevent pests than to fight them later. There are several principles that you must follow:

• Calcine the soil before placing it in a seedling box. This is done in an iron tank with a wide bottom. Do not heat it for too long, since heat treatment significantly reduces the content of minerals in the soil. You can also simply pour boiling water over the earth.
• Treat the soil with a solution of manganese or phytosporin. Both of these methods are equally effective. Most pest larvae cannot tolerate their effects.
• Refrain from fertilizing greenhouse beds with fresh cow and horse manure, as well as chicken droppings. Many insects breed in such conditions. It is better to introduce rotted fertilizer.
• Plant plants with a pungent odor in the greenhouse. They repel aphids, thrips and whiteflies. For this purpose, it is recommended to plant black-shavers, majors, onions, garlic and basil.

Conclusion

If you do not carry out preventive measures and do not take action to combat with insects, you can lose planting.

In a greenhouse it is much more difficult to protect seedlings than in open ground, so they often resort to spraying with pesticides.