How to deal with slugs on strawberries?

Most gardeners plant strawberries in their summer cottages. But at the same time, this berry is often exposed to various diseases and parasites.Today we will talk about how to deal with slugs in Victoria.

Slugs are special land mollusks. They look like snails, but without a shell. Such a parasite often changes the shape of the body. This is due to the constant contraction of muscle tissue.

At rest, the clams are wide and short. When muscles contract, they suddenly become thinner and longer. On the surface of the body such creatures excrete a large amount of mucus in the form of foam. It is necessary in order to protect it from drying out in too hot weather. And such a substance does not allow the slug to hurt its body during friction when it moves.

Their body color is gray-brown. In the head section, the clam has two pairs of special tentacles. At the end of the first are the eyes. The second pair is designed for tactile sensations.

Slugs are nocturnal. During the daytime, they carefully hide under the shade of strawberry leaflets or under wood. Under the action of ultraviolet radiation, these animals quickly dry out, which leads to their imminent death.

Malicious mollusks live for about 1-2 years. They lay their eggs once a year. Their number does not exceed forty pieces. One month later, full-fledged mollusks hatch from the eggs. Up to the size of an adult they can grow in a couple of months.

Slugs most often eat not only the ripe young fruits of strawberries, but they also love the juicy leaves of this plant. In addition, there are several important factors for the appearance of this pest on fruit beds:

• too hot summer;
• excessively high level of yield;
• uncultivated area with a large number of weeds;
• a large number of dead organic residues in the garden;
• over wet and dense land;
• high thickening of strawberry rows.

The presence of slugs on their summer cottages can be determined by several criteria:

• the appearance of deformed fruits;
• the presence of white mucus inside the berries;
• hole formation on leaf blades;
• small spots of silver on the plants.

In the daytime such pests are almost impossible to see, because they parasitize only at night. They hide, as a rule, on the leaves from the underside or in ground cracks. Eat pests young juicy leafy plates.

Many gardeners in the fight against slugs prefer folk methods.

• Sprinkle with dry mustard, slaked lime or wood ash. To get rid of them on strawberries, damaged bushes sprinkled with this tool (30 grams per square meter of land).
• Mustard powder solution. To prepare such a parasite protection, this component (4-6 tablespoons) is diluted in clean water (10 liters). They gently spray sick bushes.
• Composition with instant coffee. The product is poured with hot water and the resulting liquid is sprayed with damaged leaves on both sides at once. This treatment is recommended in the evening or afternoon, but in dry weather.
• Mulching film. It is best to take such a material of dark color. At night, the slugs will accumulate under it, because there is wet, and this favorably affects them. During the daytime, because of the heat from ultraviolet rays, the pests die, as they cannot withstand too high temperatures.

• Infusion of bitter pepper. Fresh vegetable (one kilogram) is poured with water (10 liters). In this form, all left to insist for two days. After the broth is boiled for an hour. It is cooled, and the pods are carefully ground. Liquid put for a short time in a cool place. Then she gets it and sprayed her sick seedlings.
• Sprinkle eggs or nutshell. To protect strawberries from snails, the land around it is treated with this component.In this case, this tool acts as a thorny barrier for slugs.
• Overlay dry land. These mollusks love wetlands, therefore, in order to completely get rid of them, a layer of dried earth is poured onto the ground. This should be done after you water the plants.
• Solution with ammonia and vinegar. To make this composition, you need to mix them with water (1 part of the components for 6 parts of water). After the solution obtained, infected steles and leaf blades are carefully processed.

Some gardeners clean these land mollusks from their summer cot by hand. But this method of combating parasites is the most time consuming and ineffective. After all, it will help protect the berries for a while.

Instead of this kind of bait, some gardeners take regular polyethylene. In the morning, a considerable amount of condensate will accumulate under this material. Humid environment is favorable for mollusks, so many parasites will appear there. In the daytime, under the action of sunlight, polyethylene will heat up, which will lead to drying of their bodies and the imminent death of slugs.

In order to get rid of these animals, you can disperse sharp barriers (coniferous branches, sharp gravel, sawdust, river sand) in different parts of your summer cottage. These mollusks cannot overcome such obstacles due to the special structure of the body.

Most gardeners in the fight against snails prefer proven and effective chemicals.

• Metal hydride. This tool is most often used to remove slugs on strawberries. It has the form of granules. They are scattered around the site. Sometimes metal hydride is also available as a special powder. It should also be poured on the soil around the damaged seedlings.
• Freshly Lime. In order to treat the bushes from pests with this component, it is also carefully spread on the soil around the diseased strawberries. Instead of freshly lime, it is allowed to use ground iron.
• Chlorine blend. It consists of bleach and ash. Instead of the latter, you can add tobacco dust. To save strawberries from parasites, this mass is poured on the ground.
• Drug "Thunderstorm". The composition of this drug is metaldehyde. It comes in the form of small granules. They cultivate the soil around the damaged plants (15 grams per five square meters of land). Remember that during fruiting such a tool is not recommended. Often, "Thunder" is used as an effective bait for slugs.

To prevent slugs from appearing on strawberry beds at all, some procedures should be done regularly. Do not forget to clean up all the garbage and organic residues from the soil in time.

It should also attract to the land animals that kill snails. These include birds, hedgehogs and frogs. So that they appear on your beds, you need to breed a small pond, arrange small baits or install tiny houses for wintering.

Often slugs are exterminated by moles, snakes, lizards and shrews, because such pests are their favorite delicacy. But these same animals can not only destroy the parasites, but also cause serious harm to the plants on the site.

Remember that they are scared away by various odorous plants. Such plantings include garlic, sage and rosemary. Water rows too often can not. Too moist soil will only attract slugs and contribute to their spread.

Some gardeners advise planting strawberry seedlings on artificial raised beds. Their height must be at least 30 centimeters. Also, many advise to periodically remove the thickening on the berry beds, as it attracts slugs and some other pests. For this, rows with seedlings must be thinned.

Do not forget to regularly carry out weeding and loosening the land with strawberry plants. These procedures can be replaced by mulching. For the preparation of mulch often used conifer branches or chopped wood sawdust.

Below you can see recommendations for dealing with slugs.