What to do if aphids appear on pepper seedlings?

Preparations for the summer season begin in winter. Summer residents prepare containers, soil, seeds, and grow pepper seedlings. If the sprouts are not attacked by pests, then by summer they will grow healthy and strong under optimal growing conditions. However, small bugs often appear on the sprouts of pepper - aphids. Their invasion leads to rather deplorable results: eating plant sap, aphids slowly kill the plant. To rehabilitate damaged plants, all pests must be eliminated. And for this you need to know what to do with their appearance and how to deal with them.

Her sabotage: aphids

Aphids are considered one of the most harmful plagues for plants. A small insect, up to 5 mm in length, starts on the stalks of pepper and the back of the leaf. The parasites lay large numbers of eggs, from which young individuals emerge quickly. Reproduction is fastest in greenhouses where it is warm and humid enough. To find out if parasites have settled on the seedlings, you need to carefully examine it.

In the presence of pests, the plant has the following signs:

• turn yellow, then leaves curl;
• a viscous liquid similar to syrup is visible on the surface;
• the peppers have become sticky and shiny;
• on the back of the leaf there are small bugs and egg clutches.

By feeding on plant sap and secreting a sticky liquid, aphids can slow down the growth of peppers. Also, the consequences of her activity are:

• falling foliage;
• cessation of growth;
• poor adaptation during transplantation;
• decrease in yield;
• death of the plant with late intervention.

The pest has a more destructive effect on young seedlings, which is difficult as a result to normalize development and growth. The influence of parasites negatively affects the adaptation period of the plant after transplanting to a permanent place, which ultimately affects its yield. That is why it is necessary to fight pests immediately after they appear, because you need to get rid of them very quickly in order to prevent infection of other sprouts.

Control methods

The fight against pests parasitizing on pepper sprouts has one nuance: since the plants are indoors, it is undesirable to use chemicals for this purpose. What to do in this case? You can apply folk methods. But there is also one "but" - the treatment with these agents will have to be carried out repeatedly, since they only affect the bugs themselves, and not their eggs.

• Traditional methods

The most popular remedy for parasites is a soap solution, which is used to wash all the leaves. The procedure is repeated several times to kill all insects.

For the purpose of spraying, you can prepare a product from wood ash, which is infused for a day, stirred thoroughly, filtered and, having mixed soap, is used for daily spraying in the morning.

A mixture of wood ash and tobacco dust, infused for several days, is good in repelling aphid attacks. Use in the same way as the previous composition for spraying the entire surface of pepper seedlings.

A good result is given by the infusion of needles. A single dose of the solution - 40 g - is diluted with water to a liter and used for spraying.

It is enough to simply fight parasitic insects with the help of pyrethrum, which secretes a substance that infects them. A pot with this flower is placed next to the infected plants. You can process seedlings with garlic and jealous broths. Spraying plants several times allows you to quickly get rid of attacking bugs.

Advice

If there are a lot of aphids, then it is worth cutting off the heavily infested leaves and burning them in order to remove the main accumulations of pests.

• Chemicals

Insecticides are undesirable to use indoors, although their use is very effective. The main advantage is the high efficiency of the chemical agent, which allows you to get rid of not only the insects themselves, but also the eggs. Having decided to use chemistry to destroy pests, you must remember that you need to do and use the solution in strict accordance with the instructions.

Among the insecticides are Fitoverm, Agravertin, Aktellik, Karbofos and Intavir. Fast-decomposing products are considered the best. When growing peppers in an apartment, it is better to process seedlings in the bathroom, where after processing it will be possible to wash everything well. Leaving the treated plants for a couple of hours for the drug to work, you need to disinfect the place where the seedlings were located.

Important!

Do not use insecticides during flowering and fruiting of plants.

Forewarned is forearmed

Even the most effective remedies are not able to return the seedlings to their original appearance. The damage has already been done, even if it is minimal. Therefore, the best method of dealing with aphids is considered to be the prevention of its appearance.

Of course, this will take a lot of work, but the absence of pests will only please. To reduce the likelihood of parasites appearing on seedlings, you must:

• disinfect the soil in which the peppers will grow;
• process seed material;
• place planted onions and garlic next to the seedlings, which repel pests;
• regularly treat all tools, greenhouse surfaces and shelves with caustic soda or bleach;
• provide optimal conditions for better development of seedlings, so that they can more easily tolerate attacks of parasites.

If prevention did not help and harmful insects still appeared, then you should not despair. To save pepper seedlings from pests, you need to actively fight them. What to do for this, everyone chooses for himself. When choosing a method of struggle - folk or chemical means - the main criterion should be the most positive result. Timely action will reduce losses and increase the likelihood of a good harvest in the future.