Everything about The Plum Curculio totally explained
The
plum curculio (
Conotrachelus nenuphar) is a
true weevil native to the regions east of the
Rocky Mountains in the
United States and
Canada. It is notorious for destroying fruits if left uncontrolled.
Life stages
A female curculio uses a number of hosts to lay her eggs, including
plums,
peaches,
apples,
pears, and other
stone fruits. After the female has chosen a suitable host, she'll build an egg chamber under the fruit skin to receive the egg. She then turns around and places the egg in the cavity. Next, she slices a curved slit underneath the egg cavity to leave the egg in a flap of flesh. Eggs that don't hatch are killed from the pressure presented by the growth of the host fruit, resulting in crescent-shaped scars visible on the outside of the fruit.
Appearance
Plum curculio larva are typically 6 to 9
mm long when fully grown. After such, the beetle reaches the
pupal stage measuring about 5 to 7 mm, all adult characteristics are visible in this stage prior to transformation. Adult plum curculio are about 4 to 6 mm and have a small, rough, snout colored with black, gray, and brown specks. Four pairs of ridges cover the
wings; however, because of the middle humps it only appears to have two ridges.
Hosts
The plum curculio can be found in apple, nectarine,
plum,
cherry, peach,
apricot, pear and
quince. It may also survive on wild plum,
hawthorn, and
crabapple. It is found most commonly in areas east of the Rocky Mountains and in eastern Canada. The beetles are most active during the spring time when the weather is warm, damp, and cloudy. They are often seen in heavy leafed trees.
Injury or damage to fruit
Plum curculio beetles can cause irreparable damage to a fruit harvest. In badly damaged fruit, one can identify large scars and bumps due to feeding. Most fruit internally damaged through burrowing into the fruit often drop prematurely.
Control
Pest control of the plum curculio is fairly easy to maintain. Application of proper insecticide during the pink and petal-fall stages of apples, also the petal-fall and shuck-split stages in peaches and cherries is usually enough to reduce plum curculio damage to a minimum. A recommended preventative measure is destroying the fallen, damaged host fruits before the adults emerge.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Plum Curculio'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://plum_curculio.totallyexplained.com">Plum curculio Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
