This summer, Russian farmers are seriously concerned about the widespread distribution of ticks - initially they were fought mainly in orchards, but due to climate change, today they are rapidly infecting crops of mass crops. Outbreaks of various Lepidoptera are also recorded, in particular, cotton bollworm, meadow moth, cabbage moth. These and other crop pests active in 2022 were told by the specialists of the company "August" - a major domestic manufacturer of chemical plant protection products.
Public attention this summer attracted the flight of locusts in southern Russia - in particular, in the Krasnodar Territory. August experts note: firstly, the outbreaks were associated with local pest populations. They pose a serious threat to farmers, but are not natural disasters, as the locust invasions from Africa and Asia (Italian Locust, Moroccan Locust and Asian Migratory Locust) are considered to be. Secondly, the area under crops affected by these outbreaks is, in the worst case, a few percent of the total area used for crop production. Experts emphasize that the key stage in the fight against locusts is early processing of the places of its localization. As a rule, these are beams, hollows, ravines, thickets of reeds in humid areas. Monitoring is carried out using manual means and route surveys. Experts are looking for "pods" of locusts, sometimes they find larvae. However, potential foci are often difficult to access, so it is far from always possible to completely eliminate the risk of pest spread.
Another problem that has occupied farmers for many years is the growing threat to crops from ticks. “While earlier the mite caused damage mainly to orchards and vineyards, as well as vegetable crops grown in closed ground, now this type of pest is increasingly spreading to field crops. This may be due to both climate change (ever warmer winters) and the transformation of the structure of agriculture itself. Cereals are increasingly harmed by the winter grain (red-legged) mite and the microscopic cereal mite. If the first can be seen simply when examining plants, then infection with the second can only be confirmed with the help of binoculars, and therefore farmers often mistake the damage caused to them for a disease of fungal etiology or for the consequences of weather phenomena. The spider mite, which previously caused damage mainly to orchards, vineyards, greenhouses, now threatens soybeans and sugar beets, in addition, this year it began to infect sunflowers in the Central Chernozem Region, ”says Dmitry Belov, head of the product development department at JSC Firma August.
The company notes that the fight against ticks was complicated by several factors. Firstly, they were simply not detected on the sown areas in many regions for quite a long time, which contributed to the spread. Secondly, mites were initially controlled with a conventional set of insecticidal active ingredients suitable for use on cereals. However, neither pyrethroids nor organophosphorus compounds designed to control insect pests have been shown to be highly effective.
For the necessary control, drugs are needed specifically against ticks - acaricides, moreover, those that act not only on pest adults, but also on laid eggs. At the same time, most acaricidal remedies today are designed for use in gardens and special crops. Their application model implies small areas at relatively high costs. On mass crops such as cereals and soybeans, it is practically unrealizable. However, solutions are being sought for this problem: in particular, "August" offers farmers a new drug "Stiletto", which includes the active substance of biological origin abamectin, which is effectively used both as an insecticide and as an acaricide; in particular, the product is suitable for the control of mites on soybeans.
“It is also worth paying attention to the spread of viral diseases on cereal crops, in particular, on winter wheat,” adds Dmitry Belov. – Wheat striated mosaic virus is carried by a microscopic mite. For farmers, this disease was a surprise - the last time more or less serious infections occurred about four years ago, and now this summer there was an outbreak again. The disease was recorded in Stavropol, Kuban and in the Kaliningrad region.
Another problem has been acutely manifested in the field of intensive horticulture, where the production of such a promising crop as a pear is increasing. Now she is seriously threatened by the sucker, which is also a carrier of diseases and is poorly controlled by insecticides. Copperhead has been causing significant damage to pear orchards for about three years in a row.
Lepidoptera pests show noticeable activity this year. In the Central Chernozem region, outbreaks of the cotton bollworm have been recorded. The behavior of the pest turned out to be the same as, for example, in 2014: the development of the second generation of the first summer generation took place at the end of July - beginning of August. By this time, the height of the main damaged crops and their vegetative mass had reached their maximum values. Under such conditions, the processing of corn and sunflower is possible only with the help of self-propelled high-clearance sprayers or aviation, including unmanned aerial vehicles. Whereas effective insecticides approved for aeronautical treatments are currently insufficient. In general, there are affordable solutions, but by the end of the season there is often a shortage of necessary drugs. According to the experts of "August", in some farms the cotton bollworm has eaten all the sunflower leaves, while there are fewer problems with soybeans - the cotton bollworm also harms it, but it is much easier to process this crop.
The abundance of the meadow borer is also high, which was found on almost all cultivated crops, from vegetables to field crops. Thanks to timely treatments, the crop from these pests can be saved. Outbreaks of their numbers were noted in the Central Chernozem region, in Altai and in other regions. Damage to rapeseed by cabbage moths was also detected - for example, in Bashkiria, Tatarstan, Khakassia, and the Ryazan region. However, the flight of adult insects in the current year turned out to be relatively late: it was recorded in mid-July, when rapeseed had already faded in many areas. This greatly facilitated pest control, since under such conditions the risk of damage to bees collecting nectar in rapeseed fields was significantly reduced.
In general, as stated in August, in 2022 in most regions it is still possible to avoid significant crop losses due to the spread of pests.