Growing lilies, growers are faced with red bugs, which first eat the leaves, and then the buds. Are they dangerous for lilies?
Landings with lilies are attacked by beetles - "firefighters", as they are called by the people. To be more precise in identifying red bugs, then two species that are visually very similar are equally harmful. One is a lily rattle,
the other is an onion rattle.
Both pests have red wing covers. Only the lily rattle has its head, legs, whiskers and abdomen painted black.
Beetles belong to the leaf beetle family. Their appetites are enormous. They devour not only lilies, but also hazel grouses, tobacco, plants from the Solanaceae family, especially potatoes, in nature live on lilies of the valley. Often they damage the hosts, the stock-rose. Beetles, and mostly their larvae, eat leaves, buds, flowers.
They are very voracious and their harmfulness can be compared even with the Colorado potato beetle. They practically have no enemies among insects that would restrain their populations.
When danger approaches, they deftly fall to the ground and utter chirping in order to frighten the enemy.
During the season, beetles and their larvae can destroy the entire plantation of lilies, the bulbs of which will leave for the winter weakened and may not bloom even in the next season. In the worst case, the bulbs do not overwinter and die.
Hand picking will be beneficial if the beetles are few and have not yet laid their larvae. But insects are cunning and do not just fall into the hands. They fall to the ground and hide.
The most affordable way is treatment with biological preparations: lepidocid, bitoxibacillin, fitoverm. If the invasion is large, then the "chemistry" of systemic action (actellik, aktara, confidor) is connected. Although inexpensive insecticides such as karbofos, fufanon, spark, inta-vir do an excellent job with pests. The use of folk remedies is effective, but as prevention.
when growing cut flowers, it is necessary to use chemicals only strictly according to the instructions recommended by the manufacturers. Namely, the waiting times should be considered. So, for the drug fufanon, the period is 20 days. The waiting times for biologics are shorter, ranging from 2 to 5 days. In any case, prevention and timely inspection of plants will be beneficial and rid lilies of pests.
