What are the benefits of the cockchafer: the benefits and harms of the furry flyer

Chafer

- a large insect, more than 3 cm in size. Its body looks like an elongated hazelnut, since the elytra are nut-colored. The body is covered with dense hairs. The insect has 6 brown legs and a black cephalothorax. Males are distinguished from females by a special formation on the antennae - a club consisting of plates - hence the name of the genus lamellar.

Scientists still cannot understand how the cockchafer flies, since the cockchafer

has small and weak wings. However, beetles move quickly through the air.

Pests are not only beetles, but also their larvae, which are popularly called beetles. The larva looks like a white, thick caterpillar with six small legs on the front of its body. The back of the body is dark in color, with two rows of small dark spots on the sides. The head is brown or reddish in color.

Sometimes the green bronze beetle, a large beetle with a bright green body, is mistaken for the May beetle. Despite the fact that the green bronze fly also feeds on plants, it causes almost no harm to agriculture. In addition, the beetle is listed in the Red Book, so it cannot be destroyed. You can keep bronze dogs at home and watch their interesting behavior.

What does the cockchafer and its larvae look like?

The length does not exceed 3 cm, the body is elongated. Elytrae of the insect pest are usually brown in color. There are many short villi along the entire length of the body. Sexual dimorphism of pests is represented in the formation on the antennae. The wings are poorly developed, however, it flies quite well. When flying it makes a loud noise. The movement speed is quite high for its size.

Harm to fruit crops is caused not only by mature individuals, but also by undergrown plants. A typical popular name for underdeveloped insects that have not undergone morphological changes is Khrushchev. They are similar in appearance to a regular caterpillar, with 3 pairs of legs on the front of the body. Khrushchev is characterized by the following features:

• The head is red, small in size, round in shape. It has quite powerful jaws, thanks to the properties of which the beetle eats up root crops;
• the back of the body is dark, often brown. This property is ensured by large deposition of feces in the intestines.

What do these pests look like?

Khrushchev larvae are very thick, as you can see in the photo, their thick white body is covered with short hairs, in the shape of a crescent. Newborn larvae are described as looking like tiny worms, but after a year their body length reaches 5 cm.

An adult insect is one and a half centimeters larger. The Khrushchev larva has three pairs of legs located closer to the head, and it is round. There are brown or brown jaws on the head.

Where do the larvae live? In the soil, but often come to the surface. This insect remains in the larval stage for three years, then degenerates into a pupa that resembles a beetle. They often end up on the site along with manure or humus.

Where does the cockchafer live?

There are 2 subspecies living in Russia and the CIS:

• west;
• Oriental.

They differ in shape, belly color, and mustache pattern. The usual habitat of western cockchafers is meadows and clearings, surrounded by plantings exclusively in the warm season. The properties of the digestive apparatus of the eastern subspecies provide a preference for living exclusively under the crowns of deciduous trees.

They prefer to settle in forests and wooded steppes, and thrive in plantations of young fruit trees. There is little benefit to plants from such a neighborhood. They can also live among coniferous flora. The love for spruce trees arose due to the fact that they do not grow well on hard soil. And the property of parasites is such that it is much easier for them to live inside soft soils than clay soils.

The larvae live underground. The main diet is the root systems of plants that are located next to the burrows. The period of development to adulthood is quite complex, taking from 3 to 5 years, depending on the ambient temperature. In warmer regions, beetles are characterized by rapid development. Before metamorphosis, there is a process of transition to the state of a pupa, which reaches maturity after a few months.

The typical time of appearance of the parasite is early spring; its lifespan does not exceed several months. During this time, they manage to mate, create a clutch of eggs and die.

The use of herbal infusions, decoctions and solutions against the cockchafer

• Water the soil throughout the growing season with an infusion of onion peels. Fill 1/3 of a bucket of husks with water to the brim and leave for 5 days. The resulting infusion should be diluted with water in a ratio of 1:1
• 200 g coarse salt and 2 tbsp. spoons of ammonia are stirred in a bucket of water until the salt is completely dissolved and the area is watered
• Infusion of walnut leaves (method for the south of Russia): 300 - 400 g of fresh leaves, pour 10 liters of warm water and leave for 24 hours
• Using a solution of potassium permanganate (5 g per 1 liter of water)

What are the benefits of the cockchafer?

The benefit of the cockchafer in nature is the large amount of crude protein that includes the body of the insect. Thus, it is an excellent food for birds, lizards, reptiles and hedgehogs. In addition, chafer larvae have proven themselves to be excellent fish bait. The benefit is also to attract attention. Children and pets are attracted to adult beetles, so they often try to catch them. But the cockchafer larva does more harm than good.

Also in folk medicine, there are recipes that use the body of the parasite as one of the ingredients in decoctions or infusions. According to traditional methods, the remedies help against suppuration, tuberculosis, radiculitis and other diseases.

Life activity

The development of the cockchafer takes a relatively long period, and the duration of the entire life cycle is approximately five years. This includes several stages, with varying durations. First of all, the egg develops over the course of a month.

Then a pupa appears, which lives from one to two months, and turns into a larva. Already in this state, it can remain for several years, usually three. The adult, formed from the larva, exists for no more than one year.

What harm does the cockchafer cause?

The insect is extremely gluttonous. Therefore, within 1.5-2 months, while the pest is active, it can gnaw away shrubs or young trees on the site. The main diet consists of young leaves and buds. A much greater danger is the larvae’s habit of eating up plant rhizomes. Roots thoroughly damaged by young individuals lead to the death of the plant. Therefore, the harm from the cockchafer exceeds the benefit.

What crops does the cockchafer feed on?

Typical diet of adults:

• fruit trees, especially cherries, plums, apples, pears;
• bush plants - currants, gooseberries;
• decorative - birch, poplar, linden.

We recommend reading: What are the benefits of plums for the body
Larvae are much less selective in terms of food, so the harm from them is higher. Crops affected by Khrushchev:

• vegetables – nightshade, cereals, seedlings;
• berry crops – strawberries;
• root systems of trees - birch, spruce, pine, and cedar trees are especially susceptible to the larvae’s ability to eat up roots;
• lawn and cereal weeds.

Appearance of the May Khrushchev

The May beetle is a genus of Coleoptera insects, family – lamellar beetles. These are quite large insects up to 32 millimeters in size. The body is oblong-oval. The head is small, the mouthparts are of a gnawing type.

The main difference between a female and a male is the size and structure of the antennae. Males are characterized by the presence of 7 plates, while females have only six. Plus, the antennal plates of the female are almost half the size of those of the opposite sex.

There are two most common types of insects in Russia:

— Western May Khrushchev;

- Eastern May Khrushchev.

The western species lives mainly in the west of the Eurasian continent. The lower body, limbs and cephalothorax are black.

The range of the eastern May beetle extends from Yakutia and Beijing to Odessa and Zaporozhye in the west. Legs and antennae are red-brown. The cephalothorax can be colored from black to red-brown. Oriental Khrushchev causes enormous damage to young coniferous plantations in Siberia. By destroying the roots of young pines, the beetle larvae lead to their mass death.

The larvae of both species have a similar structure. The color is white, the body shape is most often C-shaped. The head is brown with a formed gnawing apparatus of yellow-brown color. There are three pairs of limbs, no pseudopods.

How to get rid of cockchafer larvae

If adult cockchafers begin to appear in the garden, you need to immediately start catching them, before the breeding season and egg laying begins. If they laid eggs, then it is imperative to deal with immature pests. The benefits of the cheerfully buzzing cockchafers clearly will not compensate for the subsequent harm.

Immature cockchafers live quite deep in the upper layers of the soil. The difference between underdeveloped individuals is that they live at a depth of up to 40 cm. Without dense digging, it is extremely difficult to find them on the site. To activate, a high average daily temperature is needed.

A characteristic sign of the appearance of a pest on a site is the gradual death of plants. Crops will dry out, wither, and leaves may turn yellow.

Folk remedies for fighting the cockchafer:

1. The most reliable way to combat it is to deep dig up the garden in the fall. The thin skin of the young animals is not able to withstand the winter cold, so they quickly die.
2. Planting white clover in the area helps a lot. The ability of bacteria living on the root system to release huge amounts of nitrogen harms the respiratory system of the larvae.
3. You can try planting lupine flowers or turnips on the plot. The smell repels cockchafers, so they will not reproduce in the area.
4. Before planting in the spring, you need to pour powder from ground eggshells deep into the ground. Small grains clog the respiratory system of insects, leading to death.

Advice! This method is also used against mole crickets and many other pests. Mixing ground shells with vegetable oil is also beneficial. The mass will be more sticky.

Getting rid of Khrushchev

Physical removal

• Shake them off the trees in the morning, when the beetles are frozen, and destroy them by mechanical force.
• Regularly dig up tree trunk circles. All larvae must be selected manually.
• Leaves under trees should be burned.

Light traps

At night, the lantern is lit. A container of water mixed with a small amount of kerosene is placed under it. Insects attracted by the light will hit the lamp body and fall down. As an option, you can place a basin coated with grease or spread newspapers covered with long-drying glue. During the night, a considerable number of insects will gather in such traps, which will be burned or destroyed in some other way.

Biological method

Set up a house on your site for starlings or rooks. These birds love to feast on large beetles, which are a source of huge amounts of nutrients. Where these birds live, there is no place for Khrushchev. It is known that a pair of starlings, during the period of raising chicks, consumes and feeds to their offspring up to 8,000 adults and their larvae.

Chemicals

Against soil-dwelling pests, such as cockchafers, the modern market offers a whole range of chemicals of the insecticidal group:

• "Fix it";
• "Zemlin";
• "Aktara";
• "Bazudin";

Also, the Ukrainian-made Antikhrushch pesticide enjoys positive feedback from consumers.

Methods for controlling adult May beetles

The cockchafer is a dangerous pest in the garden. Therefore, combating it is mandatory to preserve the harvest. It is best to catch insects using different traps. You can catch the cockchafer using the following methods:

• hand catching;
• light trap;
• glue trap.

Light trap

To prepare a light trap:

1. You need to prepare a small container and coat its inner surface with a sticky substance.
2. Attach a light source to the bottom of the container. A flashlight or a standard electric lamp will do. Next, wait until nightfall.
3. At night, set up an improvised trap in an open area. Thus, the unwanted guest flies into the light, getting inside the sticky liquid. In addition, there are other types of insects that cause harm.

Glue trap

To prepare a glue trap, you need to purchase a sticky substance for flies at any store, then apply it to paper or newspapers. This liquid attracts cockchafers, which stick to the paper.

Natural enemies

Hedgehogs feed on cockchafers of all ages. Therefore, when a swarm of insects appears, you need to try to provide the prickly helpers with decent living conditions on the site. Then they will independently and quite effectively fight the pest.

The presence of starlings and crows in the area also helps. Winged helpers can find them even underground and successfully dig them out from there. Therefore, installing birdhouses is a good control method.

Important! Also natural enemies are field mice and rats. Animals living in burrows often encounter individuals of the cockchafer, eating them.

Lifestyle and habitat

The beetle lives in Asia, Europe, North America and several islands in Oceania. Most varieties prefer temperate regions, but some are found in the tropics.

The main habitat of the cockchafer is deciduous forests, thickets, and gardens. Insects need not only plants as a source of food, but also loose soil.

This is due to the fact that three of the four stages of the beetle's development cycle take place underground. In addition, both larvae and beetles that hatch in late summer or autumn overwinter here.

The life of the cockchafer is very organized. Insects are most active at night. They spend most of their time searching for food and eating it.

Khrushchev is very peaceful, does not fight with other arthropods and tries to stay away from people.

Medicines for cockchafers

To combat chafers, you can use chemicals - insecticides of general and targeted action. The following products work well:

• "Zemlin";
• "Bazudin";
• "Initiative".

In most cases, these are drugs whose active ingredient is diazinon or thiamethoxam. When working with such drugs, you must follow safety precautions: wear a respirator, goggles and gloves. In addition, pesticides can harm vegetation.

Biological preparations against the cockchafer are represented by bioinsecticides. The fight takes place in the ground with the larvae. The drug consists of many larvae of microscopic roundworms. When it enters the soil, the parasite penetrates the body of the larva, beginning to devour it from the inside. Such a roundworm kills the cockchafer extremely quickly. The product is practically harmless to people, animals and beneficial insects.

May bug: how to protect strawberry beds

Strawberries and strawberries are the berries to which the beetle gives primacy and preference. Under the ground, the larvae bite into the sweet roots, depriving the plants of the opportunity to receive moisture.

When setting up beds for planting strawberries, it is worth soberly assessing the presence of a beetle on the site and the danger from its presence. If you found 4-5 larvae while digging, it’s time to treat the area.

Attention! Do not plant strawberry seedlings in areas infested with beetles.

The easiest way to get rid of them is to manually select beetle larvae from the beds, but this is very labor-intensive and time-consuming. Among the chemical means of protection, the non-systemic broad-spectrum organophosphorus insecticide Bazudin is very helpful. The drug is applied under the roots of plants when planting seedlings, if the plants are planted in beetle-infested areas. Protection is provided for 30-45 days.

The fight against the cockchafer is an urgent need; without the use of special means, it is not possible to clear the area of ​​the pest.