wire worms😈

Who is wire worms

Brightly colored wire worm larvae can be clearly seen in dark ground when plowing or digging a site. As a rule, they live at a depth of 15–30 cm and go to a depth of one meter in dry soil. Therefore, they are not always found in the upper layers of the soil. 

If a surface inspection reveals nothing suspicious, the presence of pests can only be detected at harvest. This is a sure sign that the wire worm has settled in the soil, when small holes appear on the tubers, as if they were pierced by wire, or thin dark patches when cutting or peeling potatoes.

Worm look like and how dangerous is it?

The larvae of nutcracker beetles are called wire or wire worms. They can be easily distinguished from all others by a hard chitinous coating.

Externally, the wire lives up to its name - it looks like a piece of wire. This is a slender multi-segmented worm 1 to 5 cm long and has three pairs of short legs. Its color ranges from yellow to brown.

The larvae spend two to five years in the ground. At the end of the summer, they are puppets. The puppet beetles lay on the ground and fly away to lay new eggs in the spring, from which the larvae emerge quickly. 

They pass through the passages of the young tubers. As a result, growth slows and productivity declines. A damaged environment creates a favorable environment for fungal diseases and rot. Such potatoes are poorly stored.

Severely damaged potatoes are practically unsuitable for food. The harvest dies.

Wire worm control methods

Taking action is easier and more effective. Preventive measures include:

• Green manure alternatives or simultaneous planting.
• When the soil freezes, the larvae die. Therefore, a deep sieve is used in the fall.
• The wire worm loves an acidic environment. In order not to create favorable conditions for this, lime supplements should be added regularly (once every three years).
• From time to time loosening the surface soil can lift the eggs of the pest to the surface. The eggs of the nutcracker beetle will die in direct sunlight.
• Compliance with crop rotation rules..