With a view to organic cultivation of the garden and vegetable patch, insecticides should be avoided as much as possible. A useful alternative method to treatments can be traps, which allow the insect to be captured without using any product.
There are different types of traps, classified according to the method by which they attract the insect: they can be attractive to the eye (chromotropic traps), olfactory (food traps), sexual (pheromone traps).
Trapping can be chosen both as a method of monitoring the presence of pests and for more massive trapping, aimed at significantly killing the population of harmful insects in our crops. In this text, we will see how to use traps and briefly focus on some good bio-trap designs.
Contents [Ocultar]
-
Why avoid insecticides
-
What traps can be used
-
Use cheats effectively
-
Some useful biotraps
-
Contents
avoid insecticides
Pesticides authorized in organic farming are less effective than systemic chemical insecticides, since they only act by contact. If the infestation takes hold, it often requires many treatments to resolve itself, and therefore entails considerable costs both in terms of the purchase of products and time.
Moreover, using an insecticide is almost never a good idea for the environment: most products, no matter how natural, are not selective and kill even innocent insects. It’s bad for the environment and if beneficial insects like bees and ladybugs are killed, it’s also bad for the farmer.
To avoid having to resort to treatments, there are several good practices aimed at preventing the presence of pests in plants. A very important method is trapping, which involves attracting and trapping insects.
Traps can be useful both for Attention the presence of the insect, as we have already written in the article devoted to monitoring, in order to mass gain of a large number of individuals. Monitoring is useful for reducing treatments by only carrying them out in the presence of the insect and avoiding all preventive interventions that would be useless. On the contrary, mass trapping, when carried out successfully, can even replace the ‘insecticide.
What traps can you use?
The types of traps available are different:
- Chromotropic traps , where the attraction is visual and is related to the color striking the insect. They are not very selective because a large number of insects are struck by bright colors, mainly yellow is used, although there are insects that prefer red. This type of trap should not be used near flowering plants as it would be lethal to many pollinating insects.
- food traps , where the bait is a substance attractive to the insect. They are quite selective as each bait is able to attract a limited group of insects. The different food baits can be self-produced with simple lures at very low cost.
- pheromone traps : the bait reproduces the sexual attraction emitted by the females of the species. These are obviously the most selective, but also the most expensive. They are often not within the reach of a small grower or an amateur.
Use cheats effectively
Like all organic farming methods, cheating requires some care and consistency in application to achieve results. We report here two general precautions essential to the effectiveness of the traps. In addition, it will be necessary to know the characteristics of each trap and the target parasite for its correct use, so please also consult the specific articles that we mention in the following paragraph.
- monitor the territory . The mass trapping system is very effective and if it is applied with a good territorial presence, possibly also involving the neighbors of the garden or the field, it is thus really possible to trap a large number of individuals and thus reduce the risks. the insect can damage the plants.
- Chance. The traps work if they are placed before the presence of the insects spreads: it is better to capture a few individuals during their first flight, preventing their reproduction, than to fill the traps with insects from the following generations, when the situation will be critical . One way to save money on traps can be to set up a limited number of monitoring traps at first, possibly increasing them after the first catches.
Some useful bio-traps
I present to you four models of traps that can be very useful for the garden and especially for the orchard. In particular, Tap Trap is the number one food trap, you can buy it here.
faucet trap
slime trap
Sphere Trap
lime trap