Butterflies in spring: helpers show how to defeat pests!

Butterflies in spring: helpers show how to defeat pests!

The spring blossom not only produces colorful butterflies such as the dayfall eye, the little fox and the admiral, but also a challenge for winemakers in the Palatinate. The inconspicuous moth, the grape winder, turns out to be a veritable pest in the vineyards. Its larvae nest in flowers and grapes and can cause great damage, especially from vines to the reading, such as reported.

The method that Pheromones uses is of crucial importance for the protection of the vineyards. A high concentration of pheromones confuses the males of the grape winders so that they cannot find the females. Small, brown ampoules hang in the vineyards between the vines and in adjacent trees. These ampoules release synthetically produced pheromones, which cover the natural scent traces of the females and thus generate a scent cloud that requires about 500 ampoules per hectare to be effective, such as vdp-weinclub.de describes.

This scent cloud ensures that the males are confused and ultimately no return to the females. With the help of this strategy, which does not require insecticides, the grape winder remains in chess and his larvae cannot do any further mischief. When the weather is good, the crossed grape winder can even produce a third generation that also affects ripening grapes.

In addition, it is important to look at the context of the butterfly populations. Since 2005, volunteers have been collecting data about the domestic butterflies as part of the “Bagfalter Monitoring Germany”. It turns out that many types have declines, due to climate change, insecticides and destroyed habitats, as on Science.de

While some heat -loving species increase, many specialized species are threatened. This illustrates the need to renaturate ecosystems to enable both butterflies and agricultural cultures and grapes.