Why are there many flies on a blackberry and what to do with them?
 Flies on blackberry

Blackberries are not the most popular berry in Russia, they are not grown on an industrial scale here, as, for example, in the USA. But increasingly, Russian summer residents pay attention to this plant, preferring to all the familiar raspberries. These types of berries belong to the same family - Rosaceae. But, unlike his relative, blackberry has greater resistance to diseases and pests. However, this does not mean that the berry does not require care and protection from insects. In this article we will consider what pests you can find on a blackberry, in particular, flies, their causes and ways to combat them.

Why do pests appear on the blackberry?

Blackberries can be attacked by pests for the following reasons:

  1. The distinction between blackberry and raspberry is becoming increasingly blurred. Many modern high quality Blackberry varieties have a raspberry gene in their genotypeYes, and these two varieties are grown often in the neighborhood. All this leads to a gradual loss by the berry of its natural resistance to diseases and pests.
 Blackberry is a close relative of raspberry
Blackberry is a close relative of raspberry
  1. Besides raspberries, blackberries also can not be planted near the thickets of strawberries, wild rose and roses. Berries also have common pests with these plants.
  2. Often gardeners themselves become the cause of the spread of pests on berry plantations, buying seedlings not from large nurseries, but from random people, for example, selling from the subway. Either the option is even worse when the plant is purchased on trips abroad. Why not do this? Whatever the huge berries you promised, you should not buy untested and unadapted varieties to your region. Because of a dubious plant, you risk creating an outbreak of an unknown disease in your garden, or spreading insect pests throughout the territory.
  3. Lack of proper plant care. To keep the blackberry healthy and to please you with a bountiful harvest, it needs to be fed, sprayed from insects, protected from weeds.
If you do not want to risk the harvest of blackberry, it is better to take care of protecting the plant from pests in advance. For this you need to know with whom you have to fight. And the first enemies you may encounter are flies flying over the bushes.

Flies on blackberry shoots and berries: their varieties and ways to deal with them

Among the flies, indifferent to the blackberry, we can distinguish the following types of insects.

Raspberry fly stem

 Raspberry fly stem
Raspberry fly stem

A small insect of gray color, the length of which does not exceed 5 mm. For the winter, the fly takes shelter in the upper layer of soil, and leaves its shelter just at the moment when young blackberry shoots begin to grow. In the south of Russia, this occurs in mid-late April, and in the middle lane, around mid-May.

Knowing the time of departure of the insect, you can pre-treat the upper parts of the young shoots with drugs such as Actellic or Spark. In the event of a severe pest damage (up to 50%), chemical treatment will be the only way to save the crop.

After the fly leaves the soil, it begins to reproduce the offspring. A place to lay eggs are the sinuses in the upper parts of the leaves of the blackberry. The larva hatches from the egg, and it is the one that causes the greatest damage to the plant, gnawing through the spiral passages in the stems. As a result, the shoot begins to wither, starting from the top, and later on it turns black and rots along with the berries.

To save such a plant can only pruning damaged shoots. There are two ways:

  1. Trimming the shoot completely, to the ground. This method is used as a last resort, when the larva has already reached the base of escape. Cutting off the damaged areas of the blackberry in this way, you will lose a significant part of the crop.
  2. As soon as the top of the shoot begins to wither, and the leaves turn black on the tips, immediately cut the branches in half. The cut parts of the branches must be burned to destroy the larvae.This method will not only help to preserve the crop, but will also multiply it, thanks to partial pruning.

And one more way to destroy a raspberry stem fly - digging the ground under the bushes. This will get rid of the pest when it is in a defenseless state, staying for the winter.

Raspberry shoots gallitsa

Another name for this insect is the raspberry mosquito.. It is very difficult to detect on the plant, until the moment when it has already caused significant damage, because its size is only 1.5-2 mm.

 Raspberry shoots gallitsa (raspberry mosquito)
Raspberry shoots gallitsa (raspberry mosquito)

The insect female lay eggs under the bark of the plant, usually at the base of the leaf. A week later, larvae are born from the eggs, which begin to feed on the inner layers of the shoots.. From this they begin to become covered with brown spots, which eventually turn black. And a little later, the crust spoils completely, bares the escape, and it cracks. This usually occurs during the ripening period of the fruit.

To combat a malicious insect, use the following methods:

  1. In the spring and autumn it is necessary to carry out sanitary cleaning., which is to rid the plant of sick, damaged, and otlodonoschivshih shoots.
  2. To destroy an insect while it is still in the ground, you can dig the ground under the bushes to a depth of 15 cm.
  3. In order to delay the departure of the pest, root zone can be mulched with 8-10 mm peat layer.
  4. Chemical treatments against escapement midge held from mid-April until the insect had time to leave the soil. At the same time shoots are sprayed, special attention should be paid to their lower part, as well as to the near-stem circle. Insecticides such as Calypso 480 KS, Karate, Iskra, Mospilan 20 SP, Arivo, Konfidor help well.
Due to the high toxicity, it is not necessary to use such old means as Karbofos, BI-58, Fufanon. If you do decide to apply them, then the solution should be no more than 0.75%.

When using chemicals to control insect pests, always compare damage from crop loss to harm that frequent use of toxic drugs can cause. Sometimes, with the mass distribution of an insect, it is easier to replace the planting material than to expose oneself to the risk of chemical poisoning.

Some gardeners in the fight against gall midges prefer to use folk remedies:

  • Blackberry powder mustard processingdiluted in water.
  • Use for spraying infusion tansy (350 g dry tansy per 10 liters of water).
  • Planting garlic and onions under the bushes.

Such methods, of course, will not be effective with a large number of insects, but if their population is small, it is better to experiment with them before using chemistry. Also these methods will be good as preventive measures.

Raspberry nutcake

 Raspberry nutcake
Raspberry nutcake

It is a small hymenoptera insect, the length of which does not exceed 3 mm. During the flowering period of the blackberry, the females of the walnut-egg lay their eggs in the shoots., and after a month, galls (swellings up to 10 cm in length) are formed at the site of damage to the shoots, inside of which there are fly larvae. Because of the galls in the crust cracks are formed, which makes the shoots fragile and unable to fruiting. Over time, the shoots can dry out completely.

 Blackberry Blistering with Raspberry Nutsotree
Blackberry Blistering with Raspberry Nutsotree

Methods of dealing with walnut cracker:

  1. Before the beginning of the blackberry flowering period, bushes sprayed with Aktellik or Ambush.
  2. Everything shoots with galls must be cut immediately and burn.
  3. During the care of the plant you need take care not to disturb the integrity of the cortex on the branches. Cracks in the bark - a favorite place for laying eggs fly.

Raspberry leaf sawfly

One of the most dangerous blackberry pests.In the sawfly of the female, many eggs are laid in a chain on the leaf of the plant.. After the larvae come out of them, the green leaves dry and die. The larvae reach a length of 14 mm, the color is dark above, light gray below, covered with hairs. They feed on bitter blackberry leaves from May to October. The foliage is usually eaten perforated, but sometimes only a skeleton remains from the leaf. In the first summer months they live mainly in the lower tier of leaves., over time, going higher and higher. Hibernate in warm spider cocoons right on the ground, among the fallen leaves.

 Raspberry leaf sawfly
Raspberry leaf sawfly

If the number of this pest is high, then the blackberry can lose more than half of its leafy apparatus, which reduces the yield of berries in the current year. Besides, without leaves, the plant is deprived of the opportunity for the formation of healthy axillary budsrequired for future harvest.And damaged shoots in winter, most often, freeze.

Measures to combat sawfly:

  1. Soil loosening under the bushes.
  2. Mulching basal circle.
  3. Mechanical collection of larvaein case the plantation is small.
  4. Spraying plantings In the summer, insecticides with a short waiting period.

Despite the unpretentiousness of the blackberry, there is always a risk of losing the harvest. Now that you know the main plant pests, be sure to take the time to take preventive measures to control them. Exterminate flies on the blackberry is not easy, especially since the use of chemicals will not only destroy insects, but also reduce the quality of the fruits, and their safety for human consumption.