Image - Flickr / chausinho
Have you ever seen that your plant stopped having healthy and beautiful leaves? If so, a possible cause may have been a minelayer, that is, an insect larva that lives inside the leaves and feeds from inside the leaves.
Although they are difficult to control, since by staying inside the tissue they are protected from insecticides, it is not impossible 😉. Find out how to do it.
What is a miner?
As we said, it is the larva of some insect, usually moth, fly, beetle or wasp, that is digging mines inside the leaves. As it feeds, it also leaves its stools, and depending on the pattern of these, the shape of the mine and the affected plant, the species of the miner can be determined.
What are the symptoms and damage it produces?
Image - Flickr / Reinaldo Aguilar
To know if a plant is being affected, we will only have to look at the leaves. If we see that they have whitish or grayish lines or streaks, and / or if they have started to turn yellow or brown, it is likely that some miner is doing their thing.
How is it treated?
Natural medicine
The most effective way to avoid or reduce leafminer infestation is to planting plants that attract them near crops, such as the Chenopodium album (ashen), Aquilegia (columbine) and Velvetleaf. In this way, the aforementioned insects will lay their eggs on these plants, and not on the ones we want to protect.
Another option, much more drastic, is to tear off the affected parts and burn them. Although yes, with this we will not be able to know if we eliminate all the plague, but we will reduce it a lot.
Chemical remedies
When the plague is very advanced and we do not want to defoliate the plant, we can treat it with insecticides whose active ingredient is Abamectin, following the indications specified on the package.
I hope it has been useful to you.