What to Do When Persimmons Get Bugs? A Full Breakdown of Control Methods
Persimmon trees are relatively common fruit trees in rural areas; basically many farming households plant one or two by their front doors. Persimmon fruit is sweet and tasty and deeply loved by farmers, but persimmon trees often grow some insects. So what should you do when persimmons get bugs?
1. Persimmon mealybug
The persimmon mealybug is a very serious insect pest that frequently occurs on persimmon trees. The persimmon mealybug is a type of scale insect and is a pest that is very difficult to kill. The persimmon mealybug has a white scale covering with white sticky hairs, and it is a very disgusting and annoying insect. Once scale insects appear, they are very difficult to wipe out, and the surface of the scale insect's covering has a waxy substance, giving it strong resistance to insecticides.
Control method: use sujieke (fast-acting scale insect killer) to effectively spray the affected pest area, and then what you must do is that timely detection is key; then, if persimmon mealybugs appear during the fruiting period, you can choose to spray pujiling (buprofezin) for effective spray control.
2. Persimmon fruit borer
It mainly damages the fruit, causing the fruit to turn red, soften, and drop early, which people call "persimmon baking." It mainly damages the fruit as larvae, mostly boring into the fruit from the persimmon calyx. There is frass at the bore hole and it is wrapped with silk. After young fruit is bored into, it dries up early; after larger fruit is bored into, it turns yellow early, softens, drops, and causes reduced yield. In the Yangtze River basin, this insect has 2 generations a year, overwintering as mature larvae in the cracks of rough bark on branches and trunks. In summer it lays eggs between the fruit stalk and the fruit calyx, and bores into the fruit from the base of the calyx. The larvae have the habit of moving between fruits to cause damage.
Control methods: ① In winter or early spring, scrape the bark to eliminate overwintering adults. ② In late autumn, pick off the dried persimmon calyxes on the trees to eliminate the larvae inside the calyxes. ③ From June to August, promptly pick off infested fruit, dried persimmons, or yellow-faced persimmons to eliminate larvae or pupae. ④ Chemical control. In mid-July and mid-August, during the peak occurrence and peak egg-laying periods of the first and second generation adults, every 10 to 15 days, spray Nongkegu 50000 IU/mg Bacillus thuringiensis technical material wettable powder at 1500-2000 times dilution.