Object map

systematic position.

Class Insecta, order Coleoptera, family Attelabidae, genus Rhynchites.

biological group.

Pests of fruit crops.

Morphology and biology.

From Rh. giganteus Kryn. easily distinguished by smaller sizes and more dark color body. Body length 4.5-6.5 mm. Intense purple color with a strong golden metallic sheen. Body covered with long hairs, blackish above, pale brown below. Rostrum cylindrical, widened in apical part, mandibles with row of denticles along outer margin. Eyes oblong-oval, moderately strongly convex. Scutellum large, quadrangular. Imago feeds on buds, then buds, flowers, fruits. Egg laying in a special egg chamber, gnawed on the fruit, occurs from late May to August. In total, the female lays up to 250 milky-white or yellowish eggs. The duration of embryonic development is 5-9 days. There can be several larvae in one fruit, which, when they meet inside the fruit, often eat each other. Feeding mainly on rotten pulp, the larva sometimes also eats seeds. The length of the adult larva is about 9 mm. After 20-55 days of development, it goes into the soil, where it builds a spherical cradle at a depth of 2-3 cm and pupates there. The pupa is white or yellowish. Beetles hatch after 10-13 days, but leave the cradle and come to the surface of the earth after 10-40 days, from August to October. Young beetles feed on buds and young shoots in autumn.

Spreading.

Inhabits Europe, North Africa and Northern Iran. On the territory b. The USSR is widespread in Ukraine, including the Crimea, in the middle and southern strip of the European part of Russia and in the Caucasus. The northern border of its range runs approximately along the June 20°C isotherm. The species is known from single specimens from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Ecology.

In spring, beetles appear in March - April with the beginning of the movement of juice. Having laid an egg, the female gnaws the stalk, after which the fetus falls and rots. Adults hibernate under bark and in fallen leaves. Together with adults, some of the older larvae also leave for wintering, which overwinter in the soil in cradles. The diapause of such larvae extends until the end of the following summer, when they pupate. Woodpeckers and tits feed on beetles, as well as the beetle Calosoma inquisitor L. The larvae die mainly from riders (Pimpla calobata Grav., Calyptus testaceipes Grese, Bracon rhynchiti Grese) and from pink muscardina.

Economic value.

Goose fruit is most dangerous on plum, apple, apricot. Pest of thorns, cherries, pears. Damaged fruits are often affected by fruit rot (moniliosis), which is spread by beetles. 30.40 pairs of beetles on one plum tree can destroy an entire crop. Protective measures include: the destruction of last year's foliage in gardens, the collection of mummified fruits on trees and carrion, as well as plowing the soil in autumn between rows of trees.

Main literature:

Grossgeim N.A. Goose (Rhynchites bacchus L.). - NKZS-Ukrainian SSR, Mleev: Proceedings of the Mleev Horticultural Experimental Station. Issue. 10. 1928. 143 p.
Insects and mites are pests of agricultural crops. Ed. O.L. Kryzhanovsky. T. 2. L.: Nauka, 1974. 335 p.
Savkovsky P.P. Biology of goose in the Ukrainian SSR and measures to combat it. / Collection of works on plant protection of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Fruit Growing. State. ed. agricultural lit. Ukrainian SSR. Kyiv-Kharkov, 1951. Issue. 32. S. 51-83.
Ter-Minasyan M.E. Tubular weevils (Attelabidae). Fauna of the USSR. Insects are Coleoptera. M.-L.: AN SSSR, 1950. T. 27. Issue. 2. 231 p.

Goose - a pest of fruit crops

How to overcome the goose

Goose - beetle weevil, a pest of fruit crops. For many decades, even experts knew him only from drawings. But over time, the beetle settled in a businesslike way in our gardens, causing them considerable damage.

Please do not be surprised that the weevil is called a female "name". The fact is that in geese - beetles the size of a match head, with a dandy raspberry coloring of the whole body - males are somewhat smaller than females and behave more "decently": they ate, holed one fruit, and that's enough for today. And the wound on the fetus most often heals safely, although the scar from the damage remains.

The behavior of females is quite different. Having eaten in full the rotten pulp of a previously spoiled fruit and thoroughly “charged” with spores of fruit rot, the female gnaws through another healthy fruit with her long “nose” and lays an egg in it. But that's half the battle! The female clogs the entire cavity gnawed for laying eggs with her excrement. This is a "programmed" dirty trick in relation to the fetus and, of course, the gardener. Do you remember what the female refueled before her “hard work”? So, all these spores of fruit rot in the digestive tract of the goose are not digested, but only multiply additionally. Therefore, the live wound of the fetus is “sealed” by the female with such an infectious mixture, which immediately causes it to rot. Having hatched from an egg, the larva also feeds not on the fresh pulp of the fruit, but only on the rotten one.

They write that earlier the females, after all the worries about the next laid egg, gnawed through the stalk so that the fruit fell to the ground and already there the larva quietly grew up in the rotting fruit. Maybe it was like that before. But now the females do not waste time and energy on this, probably having already realized that even without these optional labors, the rotting fruit itself will sooner or later fall off the stalk.

The larvae that grow up in a rotting fruit first go into the soil to pupate, but before the end of summer they manage to turn into adult insects and damage young foliage, fruits, and buds. However, this generation is not yet too noticeable among the abundance of other pests. Adult insects and larvae that did not have time to emerge from pupation overwinter in the soil. And by the spring sun, they are all in “working condition”.

Everything seems to be clear with the "biography" of the goose. And how to deal with it?

If the gardener is not very concerned about environmental cleanliness, then treatment with almost any systemic preparation - for example, Aktara, which also has a contact effect on weevils of all stripes - after the flowering of the garden is completed, it will completely get rid of both adult insects and larvae in the fruit, and at the same time clean the garden from sawflies that are harmful at the same time.

If the gardener is concerned about the environment, then in this case, a 2-3-fold treatment with a weekly interval with the Fitoverm biological product is needed. And if the trees are small, then you shouldn’t “fire cannons at sparrows” at all for the sake of 1-2 weevils on a tree, you can get by with a fascinating “safari” of local importance. At the same time, you need to take advantage of the fact that the female involuntarily gives out her “region” of activity herself with fruits that have begun to rot, the stalks of which she was too lazy to eat. Usually there, on top, on one of the still intact fruits, a goose sits. But don't take it easy prey! At the slightest movement in her direction, she folds her legs and falls to the ground like a small pebble, where it is almost impossible to find her. True, you can’t refuse her stupidity either, because after a few minutes she again returns to the same place from which she landed.

Therefore, in order to at least partially satisfy the feeling of revenge for spoiled fruits, first carefully place your palm under the fruit with a goose, then make a movement towards it, noticeable to it, and “game” in your palm. Or laying a white film under the tree, shake it hard or spray it with large drops clean water. Goose in a few seconds will be on the film.

Well, already fallen fruits with larvae inside should be regularly collected and buried deeper, which you still have time to do this fall.

I. Burakov , agronomist

Fruit geese are beetles that damage apple, plum, cherry, sweet cherry, quince, thorns and almonds. Pests are adult beetles, they eat fruits, flowers, buds, buds, and the larvae feed only on rotten fruits.

The appearance of the fruit goose

Adult fruit geese are purple or golden-copper in color. Antennae, tarsi and rostrum purple. The whole body is covered with hairs, which are light in the upper part of the body, and dark in the lower part. Antennae are straight.

The body length of the fruit goose, together with the rostrum, reaches 10 millimeters.

There is marked sexual dimorphism between the sexes. Females are larger in size, their proboscis is straight and longer than that of males. Females have dense yellow-white hairs on the underside of the abdomen. In males, the proboscises are slightly bent, they do not have hairs on the abdomen, and the color is purple-red with a metallic sheen.

The eggs are elliptical in shape, reach a length of about 1 millimeter, white in color.

The larva is thick and wrinkled, without legs. The head is small Brown color and the body is white. In length, the larvae reach 5-9 millimeters, and about 4 millimeters wide.

The pupa is about 7 millimeters long, while its head, legs and antennae are clearly distinguishable. The coloring is white.

Habitat of fruit geese

These pests are common in the Caucasus, Iran, Algeria, in Central Asia and the Mediterranean. In addition, they live everywhere in Eastern and Western Europe.

The development of fruit goose

Young beetles emerge from the soil in spring, when the buds swell and the average daily temperature is about 6 degrees. Beetles begin to actively eat the buds, then they move on to the leaves, flowers, fruit ovaries and the fruits themselves.

When the fruit trees stop blooming, the mating season begins for the goose. The females make deep holes in the fruit and lay their eggs at the bottom. Each egg is in a separate hole. From above, the female closes the eggs with her excrement and the skin of the fetus.

The female lays eggs for 20-60 days, one individual brings about 200 eggs. When the laying ends, the female gnaws through the stalk, the fruit falls and begins to rot.

The larvae eat exclusively rotten fruits, and if the fruit is whole, then the larva dies. Larvae develop during June-July. When the larva is formed, it burrows into the soil to a depth of about 15 centimeters. Pupation takes place in a pea-sized chamber.

The pupa stays in the ground for about a month, an adult beetle forms underground. In July-early August, adults appear, they immediately begin to actively feed, and again go into the soil for the winter.

Fruit geese have certain developmental features. Not all larvae in the first year of life turn into beetles; many of them in a state of diapause spend in cradles until the next summer. That is, fruit geese can develop both in one and in two years.

closely related species

By outward signs with fruit geese, large (giant) geese are most similar. The latter have only slight differences: on the elytra, the points of the grooves are dash-shaped, copper-red in color, and the apex of the rostrum is purple, the rostrum is covered with white hairs. Large goose are most often found on a pear tree.

Harm caused by fruit geese

These bugs are polyphagous, they are harmful fruit trees. Adult beetles and larvae also harm, but adults do the most harm. An increase in the population of fruit geese can significantly reduce the yield of fruit trees.

goose damages apple, plum, apricot, less often - pear, cherry, sweet cherry, peach. Distributed everywhere, most harmful in the forest-steppe and steppe zones.

Beetle 4-6 mm long. raspberry-red, shiny with a hazel-greenish tint, covered with short brownish or yellow-white hairs. Rostrum cylindrical, narrow, finely and densely punctate at its middle. Rostrum, antennae and tarsi dark purple. Elytra slightly depressed behind scutellum, with regular shallow punctate grooves.

Both beetles and larvae overwinter: beetles - under the leaf litter, in the crevices of the bark, and the larvae - in the upper layer of soil under the crown of trees. In spring, the beetles leave their wintering places at an average daily temperature of 8°C and accumulate in the crowns of trees.

First, they gnaw out the buds, later they damage the buds, flowers, leaves and fruits.

Beetles mate at the end of flowering of pome crops. Soon the females lay their eggs in the pulp of the fruit.

To do this, the female gnaws a small chamber 2-3 mm deep in the pulp with a rostrum, lays an egg in it and closes the hole with excrement and a secreted adhesive substance. Several eggs can be laid in one fruit. Total female for spring period can lay up to 200 eggs.

Together with excrement, beetles bring spores of fruit rot into the wounds of the fruit, causing decay of the pulp. Having attached the future offspring, the females gnaw the stalk, such fruits fall prematurely.

The incubation period lasts 6-10 days. The larvae are yellowish-white with a dark brown head, covered with hairs. They develop in fruits for about a month, feeding on rotting pulp, after which they go into the soil for pupation.

They pupate in the second half of June - July. The pupal stage lasts 10-20 days. At the end of summer, beetles appear, many of them come to the surface and feed intensively, damaging flower buds. With the onset of cold weather, they hide in wintering places.

Under unfavorable conditions, some larvae enter diapause. Their development is delayed, and they pupate only next year. So the pest has one generation in 1-2 years.

What is dangerous

<Плодовые долгоносики практически первыми наносят повреждения генеративным органам. Еще до распускания почек они повреждают их, что час­то приводит к засыханию и осыпанию последних. Позднее цветоеды, при массовом развитии, лиша­ют плодовые растения возможности образовать полновесный урожай.

Control measures, prevention

In individual areas where there are not so many fruit trees, the number of weevils can be reduced by mechanical methods:

In autumn, clean the trunks and branches of old dead and flaking bark, whiten with lime mortar, and collect and burn the cleaning;

Rake up leaves and other plant debris, put them in a compost heap (pit) or burn them;

Dig up the soil under the crowns of trees, where most of the weevils have taken refuge for the winter. In early spring, during the period of bud swelling, a significant part of the weevils can be destroyed by shaking them from the trees onto the litter and collecting them. If possible, shaking should be done several times.

In production (industrial) gardens, where mechanical methods are not always possible, crop losses can be prevented by using chemicals.

Most feeding weevils can be killed, and egg laying can be prevented by applying insecticides at the beginning of bud break (green cone). Against the beetles of the cherry weevil, spraying immediately after flowering is effective.

In an individual garden, buds with brown caps in which the larvae of the apple beetle develop should be cut off and destroyed. This will no longer save the crop of the current year, but will reduce the number of beetles for the next year. This work must be carried out when the buds turn brown, preventing the development of adult insects in them. Decrease in stock of larvae goose and bukarki with regular collection and destruction of fallen leaves and fruits.

Pay attention to this:

	All about garden plants

goose- beetle weevil, a pest of fruit crops. For many decades, even experts knew him only from drawings. But over time, the beetle settled in a businesslike way in our gardens, causing them considerable damage.

Please do not be surprised that the weevil is called a female "name". The fact is that in geese - beetles the size of a match head, with a dandy raspberry color of the whole body - males are somewhat smaller than females and behave more "decently": they ate, holed one fruit, and that's enough for today. Yes, and the wound on the fetus most often heals safely, although the scar from the damage remains.

The behavior of females is quite different. Having eaten in full the rotten pulp of a previously spoiled fruit and thoroughly “charged” with spores of fruit rot, the female gnaws through another healthy fruit with her long “nose” and lays an egg in it. But that's half the battle! The female clogs the entire cavity gnawed for laying eggs with her excrement. This is a "programmed" dirty trick in relation to the fetus and, of course, the gardener. Remember what the female refueled before her “hard work”? So, all these spores of fruit rot in the digestive tract of the goose are not digested, but only multiply additionally. Therefore, the live wound of the fetus is “sealed” by the female with such an infectious mixture, which immediately causes it to rot. The larva that hatched from the egg also feeds not on the fresh pulp of the fruit, but only on the rotten one.

They write that earlier the females, after all the worries about the next laid egg, gnawed through the stalk so that the fruit fell to the ground and already there the larva quietly grew up in the rotting fruit. Maybe it was like that before. But now the females do not waste time and energy on this, probably having already realized that even without these optional labors, the rotting fruit itself will sooner or later fall off the stalk.

The “egg production” of a female goose reaches 200 eggs. Get the full picture of the damage this tiny weevil is doing! This is at least 200 damaged fruits, because strictly one egg is laid in each fruit. On one plum or apricot tree - the most favorite "objects" of the goose - usually one (rarely two) females settle. But even this is quite enough for the ovary, abundant in spring, to gradually appear under the tree.

The larvae that grow up in a rotting fruit first go into the soil to pupate, but before the end of summer they manage to turn into adult insects and damage young foliage, fruits, and buds. However, this generation is not yet too noticeable among the abundance of other pests. Adult insects and larvae that did not have time to emerge from pupation overwinter in the soil. And by the spring sun, they are all in “working condition”.

Goose fight
Everything seems to be clear with the "biography" of the goose. And how to deal with it?
If the gardener is not very concerned about environmental cleanliness, then treatment with almost any systemic preparation - for example, Aktara, which also has a contact effect on weevils of all stripes - after the flowering of the garden is completed, it will completely get rid of both adult insects and larvae in the fruit, and at the same time clean the garden from sawflies that are harmful at the same time.

If the gardener is concerned about the environment, then in this case, a 2-3-fold treatment with a weekly interval with the Fitoverm biological product is needed. And if the trees are small, then you shouldn’t “fire cannons at sparrows” at all for the sake of 1-2 weevils on a tree, you can get by with a fascinating “safari” of local importance. At the same time, you need to take advantage of the fact that the female involuntarily gives out her “region” of activity herself with fruits that have begun to rot, the stalks of which she was too lazy to eat. Usually there, on top, on one of the still intact fruits, a goose sits. But do not consider her easy prey! At the slightest movement in her direction, she folds her legs and falls to the ground like a small pebble, where it is almost impossible to find her. True, you can’t refuse her stupidity either, because after a few minutes she again returns to the same place where she landed.

Therefore, in order to at least partially satisfy the feeling of revenge for spoiled fruits, first carefully place your palm under the fruit with a goose, then make a movement towards it, noticeable to it, and “game” in your palm. Or laying a white film under the tree, shake it hard or spray it with large drops of clean water. Goose in a few seconds will be on the film. Well, already fallen fruits with larvae inside should be regularly collected and buried deeper in the fall.