Cucumber pests with photos and their treatment

Know your enemy, as the saying goes. Therefore, it's important to consider cucumber pests (with photos) and learn how to treat them to prevent crop losses in your garden. In fact, there are many pests that prey on our plants—ants, aphids, whiteflies, slugs, mosaic insects, rot, and so on. To prevent cucumber diseases, let's take a closer look at these pests, why they attack plants, and how to protect and treat them.

Read: planting cucumbers in 5-liter bottles.

 

Melon aphid

This tiny pest loves the undersides of leaves, where it settles down like a home, quietly drinking the plant's juices. Ants contribute to this by not only ruining the garden with their colonies, but also by dragging aphids onto the plants. These are their cows, who milk them and drive them out to pasture. They even carry them back to their burrows for the winter, only to drive them out to pasture again in the spring. Therefore, before tackling the aphids, you need to start with the ants. And then attack both pests together.

Ants aren't easy to get rid of if there are a lot of them in your garden. They nest deep in their nests, hiding and protecting the queen there. She's their main enemy. Once the queen is driven out, the ants will move far away from your garden. To do this, you need to destroy the anthills, pour boiling water or kerosene on them, sprinkle them with slaked lime, and so on. Water the paths with a sweet syrup mixed with yeast. Spraying aphids with horseradish root infusion is effective.

Slugs

Nocturnal hunters can cause significant damage to your crop, eating the flesh and spreading slime and excrement across your cucumbers. If you spot this pest, you need to begin eliminating it immediately. Create sweet traps to lure them into at night, dust your plants with ash, spread slaked lime along their paths, and remove weeds. Metaldehyde is the fastest way to get rid of slugs.

Whitefly

A tiny flying pest lays its eggs on the underside of leaves (check them often!) The larvae hatch and begin to frantically devour cucumbers, sucking out their juices, and promoting the development of sooty mold. Together, they will quickly destroy your plants, and you won't get a harvest.
The larvae need to be washed off, the cucumbers sprayed, and the soil tilled. Tobacco and Intra-Vir work well.

Cucumber mosquito

It's dangerous for greenhouse plants, whether newly planted or weakened. A mosquito attack causes cracking and root rot. If there's a large infestation, spray the greenhouse with "Iskra" and use growth stimulants when planting seedlings to ensure the plants gain strength immediately, making them less susceptible to the mosquito.

Interesting information: Cucumbers in a polycarbonate greenhouse: planting and care.

Tobacco thrips

These tiny insects suck cucumber juice vigorously. The leaves dry up and fall off, and the plant dies. You can get rid of the pest with Fitoverm and Vermitek, and Akarin may also be helpful.

Mosaic

A viral disease spread by aphids and tobacco thrips. Leaves develop a mosaic pattern, dry out, and stems crack. Plants stop growing and gradually die. Fruit becomes distorted, and growth stops. The virus overwinters well in plant debris. In the spring, the soil should be disinfected, and cucumbers should not be returned to the same area for several years. When sowing, select healthy seeds of resistant varieties such as Avangard or Dalnevostochny. Allow existing seeds to mature for 2-3 years before planting. Use new, uninfected ropes for tying, and spray with onion peels. The product "Aktara" can be helpful in control.

Fusarium wilt

The disease is caused by soil-borne fungi, which can attack plants of any age. From the soil, the fungi penetrate the roots and stems of cucumbers and multiply throughout the plant. The lower parts of the cucumbers rot, the cotyledons wilt, and the plant dies.

Preventative measures include proper crop rotation, replacing the soil in greenhouses, and covering the soil under plants to encourage additional root formation (during the growing season only).

Bacteriosis

It's especially rampant in greenhouses—oily spots on leaves, light brown spots on cotyledons, ulcers, and malformed fruit—all caused by bacterial blight. When symptoms appear, spray with 1% Bordeaux mixture every two weeks until cured. Harvest diseased fruit mercilessly, burn, or bury them, sprinkling them with bleach.
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