Raspberry flower beetle

The Raspberry Flower Beetle (Anthonomus rubi) is a serious pest of strawberries.

This is a very dangerous pest found when growing strawberries and raspberries. Adult beetles (about 4 mm in size, black with light gray hairs) overwinter in crop residues or in soil. In the spring (before and at the beginning of flowering) at a temperature of 12⁰C, fertilizing begins. The first symptoms of small weevil feeding are small oval holes (1-2 mm in diameter) on the leaves. Before the buds in the inflorescences open (about 2 weeks before flowering), the females lay eggs inside the undeveloped buds and then bite through their peduncle. One bud contains one egg. Each female lays up to 60 eggs and damages the same number of flower buds, which begin to wither, hang on the plant, and eventually dry up and fall to the ground. All larval development occurs in the drying bud. Development takes up to 3 weeks. In sporadic cases, the raspberry weevil can damage up to 80% of the buds throughout the plantation, causing very large yield losses. The second generation of beetles appears at the end of June, feeds on leaves for several days, and then goes out for the winter. The threshold of harmfulness (i.e. the need for protective treatment of plants) of this pest before flowering is 1 adult per 200 inflorescences.

Strawberries

– before flowering (opening of buds): after noticing the first damaged leaves (holes) or buds hanging on a bitten peduncle, – at the beginning of flowering (after the development of the first flowers) after observing the shaking off of inflorescences by adult beetles.