Pest Type: Pest of Strawberry and Raspberry
Row: Coleoptera – Coleoptera
Family: raspberries – Byturidae
It is found everywhere. Damages raspberries, sometimes found on blackberries, bones, and fruit trees.
Beetle 3.5-4 mm long, oval, black-gray, covered with rusty-yellow or gray hairs, small head, antennae with 11 segments with a mace, legs yellow. Eggs up to 1 mm in size, white or yellowish. Larva 6.3–6.8 mm long, vermiform, with three pairs of pectoral legs; light brown with yellowness, criticized brown plates are placed on the back of each segment, hook-like spines curved upward on the last nine segments, the chairman is dark. Pupa 3.5-4 mm long, white.
Beetles and larvae hibernate in the soil under bushes of fodder shrubs to a depth of 20 cm. They come to the surface in late April – early May, when the temperature of the surface layer of the soil reaches 12-13 ° С. Within 12-15 days, they additionally feed on nectar and anthers of the flowers of fruit and berry plants, then fly over to raspberries. Narrow oblong holes between the veins gnaw out on raspberry leaves. With the advent of buds and flowers, they feed on them, gnawing nectaries and other parts of the flower. Heavily damaged buds fall off, partially damaged give ugly berries.
Eggs are laid one at a time mainly in flowers, less often on young ovaries. Fertility – 30-40 eggs. After 8-10 days, larvae regenerate, which for some time are on the surface, then bite into and feed on the fleshy receptacle and the adjacent part of the bristles. The development of the larva requires 40-45 days, so they are often found in the harvested crop. Damaged berries are small, dull, quickly wither and rot. Having completed development, the larvae burrow into the soil to a depth of 5-20 cm, where they pupate in earthen cradles. Pupae after 14-15 days turn into beetles and remain in the soil until spring.
Some of the larvae that completed their development later pass into diapause and pupate only in August next year. Thus, generation is mainly one-year and partly two-year.
Protective measures. Autumn plowing aisles and digging the soil around the bushes. When the number exceeds 2-3 beetles per raspberry bush, insecticide treatment is necessary during the budding period.