Editor's note: In order to give our plants the greatest chance of survival and reproduction, some form of "unfriendly insect" control must be initiated in our gardens, and the best way to do this is not to resort to deadly sprays and poisons (which can destroy Mother Nature's elaborate ecosystems), but to first figure out the ecological food chain.
We simply divide the insects in the vegetable garden into beneficial insects and bad insects, including all the creatures that like to nibble on our cherished fruits, vegetables and flowers, and most of these bad eggs have corresponding natural predators at various stages of the growth period, and these predators are what we call beneficial insects. (We use the word "bug" here to refer not only to insects, but also to spiders, lizards, frogs, bats, birds, and fish.) ）
First of all, we have to know them first, in the end who is a beneficial insect and who is a bad insect, after all, if there is no corresponding understanding, relying on appearance, it will often be wrong, the so-called "people can not be disguised", but the same reason.
1. Little villain
△ Ants
Ants are also enemies and friends, ants will eat some pest eggs, ant activities can increase the pollination rate of plants, ants themselves are frogs and other animal food, because ants in the ground to do nests and other activities, so that the soil oxygen content increases, the soil is loose and healthy, these are its friendly side for us gardeners.
The devil's side of the ant is that it will raise aphids, just like humans raise cows, ants like sugar water, the honey juice secreted by aphids is a delicacy that ants like, and aphids are typically destroying kings, often causing damage to the young leaves of our crops, if you find that you have many ants on your crop, take a closer look, most of the reason is that they are busy "breeding" aphids, in order to protect aphids, they will drive away our good friend, the aphid's natural enemy ladybird. In addition, some varieties of ants will also directly destroy plant leaves, such as penchant leaf ants, and some will bite people and destroy wooden boards.
If you see a small number of ants in the vegetable garden, you don't have to worry, if there are a large number of ants, you need to analyze it carefully.
△ Aphids
Aphids mainly gather in the pale green young leaves, they like to suck green rhizomes, leaves and plant buds, such as citrus, apples, peaches, roses, hibiscus, gardenia, hydrangeas, pepper trees, etc., ants will raise them to obtain honey juice, when they see a handful of black ants on the plant, there will often be aphids.
△ Bean elephant
Bean elephant mainly harms beans.
△ Termites
Moths or termites attack acacia and old trees, and the symptom is cracked bark surrounded by white sawdust.
△ Cabbage moth adult
Cabbage moth/butterfly A small yellowish butterfly that lays its eggs on cabbage, cauliflower or broccoli leaves,
△ Cabbage moth larvae
Hatched larvae nibble on vegetable leaves.
△ Sea toad
Sea toad (china does not) is also called sugarcane toad, native to the Americas, originally introduced in Australia sugar cane gardens to help remove insects, the result is a pest, it will eat all the small animals that can be eaten around, including small toads, native frogs, beneficial insects, and the body of the poisonous liquid, will poison many native wildlife and water, is now Australia's notorious invasive species.
△ Carrot rust fly
Carrot Rust Fly A blackbody fly whose larvae feed on the roots of carrots and related plants such as parsnips, parsley, celery, and celery roots, which can make a large portion of carrots and related vegetable crops inedible.
△ Carrots eaten by rusty flies
Symptoms: Rusty brown scars that make the root crops inedible and cause secondary decay.
△ Golden needle worm
Kooptera and its larvae Golden needle worm Golden needle worm is a common name for the larvae of the coleoptera family Elatidae, which is widely distributed all over the world, harming wheat, corn and other crops as well as trees, Chinese medicinal materials and pastures, etc., mostly feeding on the underground part of plants, and is a very important underground pest.
△ Kowtow worm
Kowtows (kowtows) are small animals that many children love to play with.
△ Apple beetle moth
△ Fruit flies
Apple beetle moths and fruit flies Are born with the ability to find ripe or rotten fruits, and when the fruit first decays, it produces a large number of small molecules of organic acids, which has a fatal attraction to fruit flies. Fruit flies will lay eggs under the peel, but the hatched larvae are harmless and can even be eaten. The larvae are feathered and become fruit flies, so the flies grow up in almost a pollution-free environment, rarely carry germs, and have no direct harm to humans. Although there is no direct harm, if the fruit is eaten by fruit fly larvae, it will greatly affect the taste of the fruit. Fruit flies reproduce quickly, turning from eggs to adults within 8 days. This means that if the ripe tomatoes are left on the counter and not eaten, a swarm of fruit flies will form within 7 days. The entire life cycle of Drosophila can last 25 days or more and is divided into four stages: egg-larva-pupae-adult. Adults can only live for about 30 days at most, but in that short time, they can lay 500 eggs.
△ Spotted cucumber beetle on the left and striped cucumber beetle on the right
Cucumber beetle Adult spotted cucumber beetle is yellow with twelve black spots on its back. The striped cucumber beetle also has a yellow body, but has three black stripes on the back, both of the same size, about 6mm long.
△ Corn root worm
The spotted cucumber beetle larvae, known as corn root worms, are a serious problem with corn and other crops.
Adult cucumber beetles overwinter in gardens, compost heaps or garbage heaps and then appear in the spring. Adults feed on weeds and other plants until their preferred food source – gourds (such as cucumbers, pumpkins, and melons). Once the beetles find the gourd, they feed the plants, and the mothers place their eggs in the surrounding soil. After the eggs hatch, the larvae feed on the roots and stems of the underground gourd until pupate. The adults then emerge from the pupae and the cycle begins all over again. The entire life cycle of an insect is about eight weeks.
△ Ground tiger
Ground tigers live under the surface soil and are the larvae of moths that specialize in nibbling on a variety of vegetable seedlings.
△ Salamander
Beetles are also friends and foes, commonly known as ear clipper worms, resting in dry high places during the day and foraging at night, so it is difficult to find, and some varieties of salamanders (such as European salamanders and Australian salamanders) like to eat crops such as dahlias and hollyhocks, so they are called harmful. It is also an omnivorous insect, but also eat more than 40 kinds of small insects, such as cotton bollworm, red bollworm, twill moth, cotton aphid, etc., a midgea adult can prey on more than 200 cotton aphids a day, at this time is a good friend of farmers.
Knowledge of the biology and ecology of most salamanders is still very limited.
△ Grasshoppers
If left unchecked, a large number of grasshoppers are bound to cause damage to the vegetable garden, and adult grasshoppers are afraid of water, flush with water pipes, or let the birds come to a full meal.
△ Tobacco moth adult
△ Tobacco moth larvae
Tobacco Moth "It's big, fat, green, with dangling stripes and spikes on its tail, what kind of bug is this?" "That's right, it's the legendary tobacco moth... Larvae! "。 Eggplant, peppers, tobacco, and tomatoes are often attacked.
△ Ladybugs (26-28 stars)
Ladybugs (only 26-28 stars) This type of ladybug prefers to eat crops and is often classified as a small villain.
△ Leafminers
Leafminers Are smaller insects that are difficult to see with the naked eye, but their "crime scene" is obvious, and they will eat the part between the upper and lower surfaces of the leaf.
△ Powdery beetle
Whitefly looks like fluffy white dust on the stalks of plants, mainly harming various fruit trees, flowers, succulents and other plants, often clustered on branches, leaves, fruits, sucking plant sap for a living, serious will cause plant death. Females and larvae of the whitefly cluster on the back of the leaf.
△ Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes Mosquitoes will look for water collectors or ponds where the larvae are placed, so all buckets, wheelbarrows, etc. are turned upside down to avoid standing water when it rains.
△ Rat woman
Rat woman mainly harms tomatoes, rapeseed and so on. Symptoms: Adult and larvae endanger the leaves, resulting in lack of trees, and the heavy can eat the flesh of the leaves, leaving only the leaf veins and petioles.
△ Snails
△ Slugs
Snails and slugs forage at night, prefer dark and damp places, and often gather in the shade of pots, empty pots or on the sides of bricks.
2. Beneficial insects
If you can provide what you need, there are actually thousands of willing workers who will assist you with pest management and many other tasks in your garden for free.
Natural pest management does not involve replacing chemical pesticides with organic pesticides. Organic sprays, which can drive away or kill beneficial insects as well as pests, should be used as a last resort.
We need to employ a set of sensible strategies to ensure that a balanced ecosystem is created against each of the little villains, with six or seven natural enemies of it or its larvae.
Let's take a look at some of the highly effective assassins that can be brought in to eliminate the mischief-mongers.
△ Bug hunting
Bug hunters are effective killers, using their proboscis to paralyze and kill their prey, such as caterpillars, grasshoppers, and green worms, and then, they inject a powerful enzyme that liquefies the prey's internal organs so that it can be drunk.
△ Bats
Small insectivorous bats fly around at night, sometimes devouring more than 500 species of insects per hour.
△ Bees
Bees: While not natural enemies, bees and small native bees are vital to every garden, feeding on pollen and nectar and pollinating our precious plants and flowers.
△ Walking bugs
△ Fart worm
Beetles While some are pests, others, such as walking bugs and fart bugs, are valuable assets in our gardens. They feed on caterpillars, ground tigers, flies, nematodes, fruit fly larvae, slugs, snails, thrips, aphids, ants, termites and grasshopper eggs in the larval and adult stages.
△ Fantail
△ Bully
△ Robins
△ Wren
Birds like fantails, bullies, robins, and wrens are all popular guests because they eat a wide variety of pests. It is best to plant some native shrubs with small spiked leaves to provide them with a nesting place to avoid large birds.
△ Butterflies
Although their caterpillar larvae like to eat some of our plants, adult butterflies help pollinate and beautify our gardens, thus making up for its deficiencies.
△ Centipede vs Slugs
Centipede is very popular with us because of the potential bite hazard, but it is the nemesis of slugs.
△ Snake dragonfly adult
△ Snake dragonfly larvae
Snake dragonflies Adults are vegetarian, but the larvae live in water and will eat a large number of mosquito larvae.
△ Dragonfly
△ Bean Lady
Dragonflies and beanwomen Adults eat mosquitoes, the larvae live in the water, eat mosquito larvae, so there is a small pond in the vegetable garden that can attract dragonflies to breed here.
△ Frogs
Frogs can also be built ponds to attract frogs, which are an effective killer of many pests, including moths, cockroaches, flies and grasshoppers.
△ Aphid-eating flies
Aphid-eating flies are one of the most valuable beneficial insects in the vegetable garden, protected from attack because of their resemblance to bees and wasps, and more calmly attacking such as aphids, beetles and caterpillars, which lay their eggs in the aphids so that their offspring can have plenty of food after hatching. Aphid-eating flies also need pollen and nectar, and like bees, can help pollinate plants.
△ Grasshoppers
Grasshopper Grasshopper is a fully metamorphosed insect, there are four different forms of eggs, larvae, pupae and adult insects in life, grass pupae at the egg stage and pupae stage can not be eaten, predation is mainly in the larval and adult stages, of which the larval stage of large predation, is the main period of eliminating pests. Grasshopper larvae are ugly and fierce predators, and people call grasshoppers in the larval stage aphid lion.
△ Ladybugs
Ladybirds (Ladybirds are one of the most important allies in controlling aphids, they have many colors and spots, but the ones to watch out for 26-28 stars are the notorious plant killers.
△ Stone Dragon Zi
△ Gecko
Lizards eat a lot of pests and are therefore valuable for gardens, and the most common types found in suburban gardens are usually stone dragons and geckos, which need some habitat, such as rocks and logs, in case of birds and cats.
△ Praying mantis
Mantis Adults and larvae eat a variety of smaller insects, including cabbage moths, whose presence is a good indicator of ecosystem balance.
Insectivorous worms
The beak is short and strong, and is used to puncture prey and inject saliva containing toxic and proteolytic enzymes, paralyzing the prey from the inside, sucking the liquid through the long mouth.
Snakes In small vegetable gardens, most of us don't like snakes, but in larger farms, such as sugar cane plantations, cornfields or banana orchards, snakes can help control the number of rats and are a valuable asset, so be sure to leave it a working space.
△ Spiders
Spiders are highly evolved creatures and are probably the most important predators and assassins. The problem is that most people are afraid of them, so they don't get good publicity. If it weren't for them, we might not even be here because the planet might be occupied by insects.
△ Wasp
△ Little Wasp
Large wasps and wasps are almost always useful predators or parasites that attack a wide variety of pests. Some wasp larvae live in or on the body of a host, such as caterpillar larvae. Many adult wasps feed on open flowers, nectar, and pollen.
Postscript: God knows how perfect nature's design is! Ecological balance, balance, balance, you can sit back and enjoy it, but it requires extremely clever wisdom!
(Article finishing: Park Natural)