What usually threatens the berry culture?
With due care for the culture should not arise. But sometimes something gets out of control, and the plant begins to hurt. Basically, with strawberries there are such problems:
• gray rot;
• verticillin wilt;
• leaf spotting;
• strawberry tick;
• weevil;
• garden slug;
• infection with parasite larvae.
How to deal with diseases?
Gray rot is a rather dangerous disease not only for strawberries, but also for other garden crops growing in the same area with the infected plant. With high humidity, it begins to progress and can achieve huge crop losses. The main symptoms and plants are considered the appearance of brown spots and grayish fleecy on the berries. In a short period of time after detecting an infection, the strawberries rot. Post-Harvest Strawberry Care must be done correctly.
You can get rid of gray rot with the help of what they process strawberries in the spring from diseases and pests. At home, the most optimal method of combating the disease is pharmacy iodine, 10 ml of which should be diluted in a bucket of water. The procedure, carried out twice - during the period of growth and budding - is, rather, preventive in nature.
If the plant is already affected by gray rot, it is necessary to prepare a decoction of garlic leaves in the ratio of 100 g of foliage per bucket of water, or use mustard powder, also previously diluting it with warm water. 50 g. Per 10 liters. water is an ideal proportion to combat this type of disease.
If the degree of damage is quite high, you can use chemical agents, but their use must be approached with extreme caution. Effective means for a long time consider "Fundazol", "Euparen".
If strawberries can be cured of gray rot, then when infected with verticillous wilting, there are not many options for solving the problem. The most reliable way to eliminate the infection is to dig up the affected bushes and eliminate them without a trace. Moreover, it is better to plant new plants away from the old dysfunctional place. At the end of May, as a rule, signs of the disease appear. Find out, how to plant strawberries under cover material.
Strawberry leaf spotting can be overcome mainly with the help of pesticides. Usually, before treating strawberries in the spring from diseases and pests, folk remedies are not used for prophylactic purposes because of the lack of their effectiveness against infection. Bordeaux liquid or copper chloride is considered the most popular drug among gardeners whose strawberries have been suffering from spotting for quite some time.
How to eliminate parasites on strawberries?
If strawberry bushes were attacked by harmful insects, then you should not immediately panic. Here, too, the chances of recovering your favorite culture remain high. The most common parasites are strawberry mites. They feed on the foliage juice of the plant, simply taking away all their vitality. First, it becomes lighter, and then, when dying, the leaves fall off, and the condition of the bush is aggravated. The best prevention before deciding what to process strawberries in the spring from diseases and pests, gardeners' forums call a one hundred percent scalding method.Its essence lies in pouring boiling water over the beds as soon as the snow melts. This method is effective in getting rid of larvae that insects have laid on foliage.
If a tick is found, when berries appear on the bush, it is urgent to spray it with Intavir or Agrovertin.
Strawberry weevil is not inferior in popularity to a tick; it also often affects strawberries. The first signs of its negative impact can be seen in March-April. The condition of the shoots, leaves and buds is significantly deteriorating, early varieties are considered especially susceptible to the parasite. Preventive methods using improvised tools do a good job of this. Gardeners praise garlic solution, a decoction of capsicum and tansy infusion. To cure already diseased strawberries, Intavir and Zeta will come in handy. You can repeat the spraying procedure after harvesting, which will not allow the pest to stay in the garden in winter.
Slugs may seem completely harmless, but in fact you need to expect huge troubles from them. They can damage almost all the berries on the bushes. You can overcome the pest by spraying all parts of the plant with spring mustard solution in spring or summer. Often used and infusions of red pepper, popularly called the "spark". Many pollinate strawberries with lime or sprinkle with tobacco dust.
A few words about caring for culture
Undoubtedly, how to treat strawberries in the spring from diseases and pests (the videos often demonstrate all the subtleties and nuances of the procedure) is an important issue. But it is equally important to follow all the rules for caring for the crop. To get a healthy and rich strawberry crop, you need to feed the plant with nettle infusion. Attention should be paid to the irrigation regimen, because excess moisture is often a provocateur of the development of diseases. The same can be said about the drying out of the soil on which strawberries sprout.
There should be no weeds near the crop, but the presence of nearby garlic will only benefit it. Periodically rubbing its leaves, you can scare away the pungent odor of many parasites, and then the need for chemical treatment of strawberries can disappear by itself.