Price, Feeding Habits and Control Methods of the Chinese Medicinal Click Beetle
The click beetle belongs to the family Elateridae (also known as the superfamily Elateroidea) in the order Coleoptera, and is also known as tiaobaizhang, tiaobochong, gebochong, tiaomichong and datiechong. It has certain pharmacological effects, so how much does a click beetle cost? What does it like to eat? How is it controlled?
How much does a click beetle cost
It is understood that the price of click beetles is now very low. After being caught from spring to autumn, they are killed in boiling water and dried in the sun.
What does the click beetle like to eat?
Click beetles often burrow underground and gnaw on plant seeds, roots and stems. Click beetles are widely distributed and cause great damage to crops such as wheat, corn, sorghum, upland rice, millet, potato, cotton and vegetables. The most common are the grooved click beetle and the brown-striped click beetle. Irrigation can prevent and eliminate click beetles.
Larval morphological characteristics: Adult click beetles are generally darker in color, with slender or flattened bodies and comb-like or serrated antennae. There is a claw on the underside of the thorax, which can be retracted into the thoracic cavity when pressed. When a click beetle lies on its back, if the claw is suddenly struck, the click beetle will spring up and jump backward. The larva is cylindrical, with a hard body surface, wax-yellow or brown, with two pairs of appendages at the end, and a body length of 13-20 mm. Depending on the species, the larval stage lasts 1-3 years; the pupa is in an earthen chamber in the soil, and the pupal stage is about 3 weeks.
Living habits: Underground, they mainly damage the root and stem parts of corn seedlings. There are three types: the grooved wireworm, the slender-chested wireworm and the brown-striped wireworm; their larvae are collectively called wireworms, among which the grooved wireworm has the widest distribution. When causing damage, they can bite off newly emerged seedlings, and can also enter the roots of already grown seedlings to feed and cause damage; the damaged area is not completely
bitten off, and the break is not neat. They can also bore into larger seeds and tubers and root tubers, hollowing out holes, and the damaged plants then wither and die. The grooved wireworm pupates from August to September, with a pupal stage of about 20 days, and emerges as an adult in September, overwintering in the soil, then emerging and becoming active from March to April the following year. The activity of wireworms is closely related to soil temperature, humidity, and the growth stage of host plants. The time when they rise to the surface soil to cause damage coincides with the period from sowing to the seedling stage of spring corn.
How are click beetles controlled?
1. Use 40% Tuoda chlorpyrifos at 100 times dilution for seed dressing.
2. At the seedling stage, use 40% Tuoda chlorpyrifos at 1500 times dilution or 40% phoxim at 500 times dilution, mixed with an appropriate amount of roasted wheat bran or soybean cake to make a poison bait, and scatter it along the rows at the base of the corn in the evening; by making use of the habit of underground pests of hiding by day and coming out at night, they can be killed.
3. Coated seeds may be used for corn, and for wheat, 100 mL of 40% isofenphos can be mixed with 2.5 kg of water to dress 50 kg of seed.