Sweet tobacco or Nicotiana Affinis is an annual plant that belongs to the same family as potatoes and eggplant. At home in Latin America, this perennial plant can reach a height of one and a half meters. It has distinctive properties from other plant species.
Tobacco is not distinguished by a variety of colors. There is a fairly widespread opinion that its landings are very effective against the Colorado potato beetle, but, like every statement not verified by our own experience, there are diametrically opposed opinions. There are skeptics who do not believe in efficiency, but who do not test it on their own experience, ardent supporters and adherents, according to whose opinions an opinion was drawn up about the effectiveness of the method.
The Colorado potato beetle is a real disaster that can hit a potato crop by 100% if you let the process go by chance and allow it to multiply uncontrollably. Hassle-free plant growth, which is able to decorate and ennoble the surrounding reality, has a dizzying aroma, a photo on which you can look at the variety of colors and shapes of a decorative plant suggests simple use for decorative purposes.
Perhaps the secret to the successful use of fragrant tobacco, with which enthusiasts have achieved success in the battle against the Colorado potato beetle, lies in a certain method of cultivation or in a separate variety. Cultivated tobacco does not have all the properties of that perennial that grows in its homeland and contains other volatile products.
Here are just the reviews are controversial: in someone in the photo the beetles are actually present on the bushes with bright flowers, while in someone the potatoes are quietly eating up, not paying the slightest attention to tobacco. Some are sure that the guest landed in the aisle from distant Latin America scares away his fellow countryman with the phytoncides contained in it.
Others dry and grind the plant into dust, from which they prepare an anti-bug. Trying out the means and making your own opinion about them is a simple matter, especially when you consider that at the same time the tobacco will delight the eye with its beauty and unforgettable aroma, which simply turns your head in cloudy weather, or in the evening when the sun has set.
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Sweet tobacco and its unique features
The classic Nicotiana Affinis in the place of its original germination has long been cultivated for its unforgettable decorative and aromatic properties. As a home plant, it is grown in Argentina, Brazil and Iran. This is a flower known not only for its decorative features, but also for the fact that its flowers contain a lot of nicotine in the stems.
If we recall that nicotinoids are part of modern insecticides, and neonicotinoids were also developed, the version using dried stems and flowers instead of means of controlling a beetle of chemical origin seems likely and has the right to practical use.
The fragrant tobacco from the Colorado potato beetle, as a crushed plant material that is bred with water for spraying, seems more likely than the beautiful flowers planted in the aisle, on which the whole beetle instantly gets over from potatoes.
Over time, breeders became preoccupied with its decorative properties and adaptability. The results of the crosses and experiments were low-growing annual hybrids, heterotic, multi-colored, able to bloom the entire spring-summer period, and undersized - for flower beds, balconies and pots. But if you try to plant these hybrids against the Colorado potato beetle, they are unlikely to be as effective as their taller and semi-wild fellow with a stupefying aroma.
Perhaps the failures that some gardeners suffered in the fight against the Colorado potato beetle, planting beautifully flowering bushes in the rows of potatoes, are explained by the heterotic loss of their original properties and the acquisition of others. They made fragrant tobacco a convenient ornamental plant, but also deprived it of its ability to poison the Colorado potato beetle.
Today, there are several hundred varieties of ornamental plants, the most interesting of which are recognized varieties:
- intense raspberry Night Bonfire;
- saturated lemon or bright yellow Sunny Bunny;
- salmon pink, peerlessly delicate shade; Ringing Bell;
- ultramarine gamut, Fragrant Harbor;
- lilac purple, Lilac Fog.
Their wild ancestor stretched to the sky up to 150 cm, had in nature only a milky-white color and a hairy stem, and the flowers did not exceed a diameter of 8 cm and were collected in a panicle or racemose. Unlike the current, for the most part, self-pollinated hybrids, it responded with an insect attracted by nectar specially developed for this at the bottom of the flower.
Growing and caring for a plant
Reviews of fragrant tobacco when grown from the Colorado potato beetle indicate that the technique is actively working in central Russia and in the Moscow region. There, the plant, because of the cold climate, uncharacteristic for the inhabitant of the tropics, is grown in open ground only in seedlings, and in a limited variety variety.
The seedling method is preferred in most regions, and only in the southernmost regions it is planted in the soil with seeds. According to those who use fragrant tobacco to control the Colorado potato beetles, they use seeds obtained from their variety and do not particularly care about the decorative component. They are convinced that hybrids smell in the evenings and in cloudy weather is not as pleasant and intense as varieties grown for several years without updating seed material.
Planting seeds is as follows:
- purchased soil, or self-prepared, from mixed in the same proportions of humus, peat and simple bedding land;
- tobacco seeds (very small) are mixed with thoroughly washed fine river sand, and this mixture is poured onto the surface of the seedling container, only slightly crushing by hand;
- a layer of the prepared mixture is sprinkled on top, with a thickness of not more than 5 mm, and is closed with a plastic film;
- the boxes are in a warm place (temperature not less than 200C), sometimes moderately sprayed with warm water from a spray bottle;
- picking is carried out not earlier than the appearance of the third leaf, a third of the root system is stopped during transplantation;
- planting in the soil is possible when the tobacco has reached a height of at least 13 cm.
If planting is carried out correctly, and the flowers created a natural fence for planted potatoes at the same time as seedlings, beetles, according to gardeners, eat flowers completely and lose their ability to lay eggs. If necessary, you should grow more seedlings and plant them instead of eaten by bugs. The larvae that hatch from already laid eggs will have to be fought manually.
Methods of using fragrant tobacco against a potato aggressor
Folk methods have one indisputable advantage: their purposeful use, unlike insecticides, does not destroy beneficial insects, including bees. If you plant potatoes for several years in a row according to the rules of agricultural technology (changing its place of planting and placing plants there that the Colorado potato beetle does not eat), and planting fragrant tobacco in the protective rows, after 3-4 years the bugs will become significantly smaller. And after a while they will disappear completely. You’ll have to work by planting flowers regularly instead of eaten by bugs, but it's worth it.
Not everyone is confident in the effectiveness of the methodology, mainly those who have not tried to deal with this purposefully. But they also use tobacco dust to destroy the bug, which is obtained by grinding dry plants.
To make a natural insecticide from tobacco dust, plants are dried in a blown dark place until they are completely crunchy, after which they are ground to a fine consistency. It is dissolved at the rate of 50 g per 1 liter of water (0.5 kg per 10 l) and the treatment of the area planted with potatoes is carried out.
Valuable experience is always worth a try, but even if it fails, fragrant tobacco will delight you with its beautiful appearance and delicious smell.
