It is necessary to periodically check the condition of the vegetables to keep pests under control.
Sticky traps, pheromones, and biological corridors are some techniques that you can use in your garden so that pests do not damage your crop.
It is common to notice damage to vegetable crops, since pests such as aphids, red spiders, and whiteflies, among others, see these crops as a concentrated and reliable source of food. Therefore, Integrated Pest Management performed by pest control technicians is essential to mitigate the risk of these animals destroying your crop. Experts recommend including control measures and thus avoid damage that results in economic losses, affecting production and competitiveness. Below are five techniques to mitigate pests in your planting:
Locate yellow trays
The first simple and practical step you can implement to identify and detect early aphid infestations is to place yellow trays or containers with a mixture of water and detergent or liquid soap. This mixture will break the surface tension of the water, so the insects can sink and drown. Thus, you will be able to notice when checking the container if there are already signs of the pest in your crop, and at the same time, with this technique, you can attract insects that are favorable.
Deploy yellow sticky traps
Yellow sticky traps are one of the most common techniques due to their high effectiveness, as they help reduce flying insect populations before and during crop establishment. However, it should be considered that these traps also attract natural enemies, especially parasitoids (microwasps) and predators such as lacewings and hoverflies.
Make use of pheromones
Pheromones are mainly used in agriculture to control pests. These are chemical compounds that adult insects of the same species release for mating, communicating oviposition sites, or indicating a path. Sexual pheromones are released by the female for mating and, as they are volatile, they cover great distances and act on a small group of insects. Its implementation is based on installing a trap with a specific pheromone at certain points of the crop, in order to attract the male, which remains stuck in a sticky cover.
Create Biological Corridors
Biological Corridors are areas with a high diversity of plants and flowers, capable of attracting natural enemies of crops to control pests such as micro wasps, parasitoids, hoverflies, lacewings, and pollinators such as Apis Mellifera. An ideal flower for this function is the calendula, which attracts aphids and pollinators to its flowers. These runners should ideally be installed at the edges of fields or greenhouses. With its implementation, biodiversity will increase, a favorable aspect for the agroecosystem.
Form a trap crop
This strategy is one of the most effective and used since it is an agroecological tool that consists of planting a plant species that is more attractive to the pest on the edges or within the main crop and even with the same species, but in a phenological state. In this way, the migrant pest concentrates on this crop, reducing the density and intensity of the pest and minimizing damage to the main crop. The location and design of the trap crop planting depend on the shape and dimensions of each planting.
So what are you waiting for?
