Mustard against Colorado beetle: methods of application

Mustard against the Colorado beetle is often used by truck farmers when growing potatoes and is sometimes much more effective than some special chemicals.

Colorado beetle

Most of all, perhaps, suffer from gardenplantations from this pest. The Colorado beetle eats potato tops, which leads to a disruption in the development of tubers and can cause serious damage to the crop.

The destructive activity of the Colorado beetlebegins in the flowering period of potatoes. His tender greens at this time is particularly sensitive to damage. Ignoring this pest can reduce the yield in the suburban area by more than half. To deal with such insect pests today, many special chemical preparations are sold that are effective against the beetles themselves, as well as their larvae. But in order to reduce the amount of toxic substances used in the cultivation of potatoes and get a healthy harvest, many truck farmers prefer to treat plants tested in years and safe for humans folk remedies. Very often, for this purpose, ordinary mustard is used. Against the Colorado beetle, many other means are effective.

Natural insecticides

Nettle infusion of nettle helps not onlyprotect plants from pests, but also serve as a good fertilizing. To prepare it, take stems and leaves of young nettles, carefully chop, fill with this mass of half a bucket and add it to the top with water. When the infusion is fermented, it is added to the water to water the potato beds at a ratio of 1:10.

Often used by truck farmers to process potatoes is a product, which consists of mustard and vinegar. Onions, birch tar, and elecampane roots are also effective against the Colorado potato beetle.

It is possible to prepare an insecticide concentrate fromfield horsetail and dandelion. Two hundred grams of grass should be poured a little water, close tightly with a lid and simmer for 15 minutes. Then strain and apply for spraying the potato tops, using 500 ml per bucket of water.

Up to 80% of insect pests are capable of killingsoaked in water (2 kg per 10 liters) leaves of walnut. They are harvested from autumn and stored until the new season comes. It is recommended to treat potatoes 20 days before the mass appearance of beetles.

Mustard against the Colorado potato beetle

There are many recipes for cookingEffective means for protecting vegetables from pests prepared with mustard. In addition, it can simply be planted in the inter-row, and during flowering, the plants torn from the roots can be placed in grooves near the potato. Mustard scares the beetles well, causing them to fly around this place.

The effective agent is factory mustardand vinegar against the Colorado potato beetle. Comments of truck farmers using such a facility, note the complete absence of pests on the site after treatment. To prepare the solution, you need dry mustard (1 packet) and 100 grams of table vinegar. All this is diluted in a bucket of water and sprinkled with potato tops. The treatment is carried out twice - at the beginning of the growing season and after the appearance of a large number of insects.

You can prepare an aqueous solution of mustard, when 200 g of powder is poured into 10 liters of water and the resulting mixture is infused for 12 hours.

Useful properties of mustard

Dry mustard against the Colorado potato beetleis used with success, but this is not the only application in the garden. It is planted not only as an insect repeller. In addition, mustard is known for a lot of useful qualities. It grows very fast, which does not allow the development of weeds. The structure of the soil in the place of planting mustard is markedly improved, it does not leach. Garden lands are cleaned of scab, phytophthora. In addition to the fact that the mustard is effective against the Colorado potato beetle, it is able to scare off such garden pests as slugs, moth and wireworm.

In autumn this plant becomes a good mulching shelter, protecting the soil from freezing. In summer, its juicy leaves can be used to make salads and sandwiches.

How to grow mustard

Mustard seeds, although small in size, butthanks to their three-dimensional shape is easily captured, so it's convenient to plant them. Planting is performed in rows, leaving a distance of 10 to 15 centimeters between the seeds. In this case, it is not necessary to do deep penetration. The average depth should be 1-1.5 centimeters. After 3 days, the first shoots may already appear.

Also, for the purpose of fertilizing the soil, it is often plantedmustard. Against the Colorado beetle (it is confirmed by vegetable farmers), it is very effective at the same time because it scares away the smell during the season of this pest.

I do not need to take care of mustard. This plant is very unpretentious and needs only regular watering and loosening of the soil.

Agrotechnical methods

Mustard and vinegar against the Colorado potato beetleare considered the most effective means for processing potato bushes. But there are other ways that can be used in the fight against this pest. A good repeller for the Colorado potato beetle is the onion peel. When planting potatoes, add 2 tablespoons to each well.

The phytoncidal substances that release beans,also discourage the beetle, so it is useful to plant leguminous crops in the same row as potatoes. To save the crop from pests will help and competent crop rotation. On one site it is not recommended to plant annually crops that are close in origin.

It does not really matter which wayis used (onion husks, nettle infusion, planting of repellent plants or mustard and vinegar) against the Colorado beetle, reviews of gardeners suggest that this allows not only to preserve the crop, but also their own health, and also protect the environment from harmful and toxic toxic chemicals.