Have you tried everything, but the worms keep coming back? Garden Secrets magazine has discovered a shocking fact: the culprit is not your raspberries, but your strawberries!
Organic farming expert Dmitry Pevtsov said in the stream “Dachny Detective”:
"Raspberry beetle larvae migrate from bed to bed, but you will never suspect their 'home'."
Olga from Rostov-on-Don admitted in a review on the forum:
“I removed one bush and the raspberries became clean!”
The culprit is lilac. Its roots secrete alkaloids that attract raspberry beetles.
If the bushes grow closer than 5 meters, the pests will attack annually. The second hidden enemy is the lawn.
The larvae love to hide in the roots of grass, and in the spring they crawl onto raspberries.
The solution is to fill the space between the rows with sawdust soaked in tar (100 g per 10 l of water). Research by the All-Russian Research Institute of Plant Protection has proven that this method creates a “dead zone” for pests.
But the main reason is your love for nitrogen. Manure and urea make the berries juicy, but attract female beetles.
Replace them with potassium fertilizers: an infusion of banana peels (3 peels per 3 liters of water) or wood ash.
Sergey Kovalev , owner of the EcoMalina farm, advises:
"Dust the buds with starch - it will repel pests, but is safe for bees."
Another "traitor" is a compost heap next to the raspberry patch. Rotting waste is an ideal incubator for larvae. Move it outside the site or use closed containers.
"Worms in raspberries are like moles in a garden. Look for the cause not where it is visible, but where it is warm and damp," writes entomologist Anastasia Vetrova .
Eliminate these hidden factors and you will forget about wormy berries. And raspberries will become sweet, like in childhood, when you stole them from your grandmother's plot.
