In the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine this year, an intensive spider mite population of sunflower crops has been observed, resulting in significant damage.

According to Syngenta in Ukraine, the first significant damage to this crop was noted in the south as early as the first decade of June.

Today, in a number of settlements and farms of Odessa, Nikolaev, Kherson, Zaporizhzhya and partly Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovograd regions, the proportion of populated plants in the fields reaches 70-100%.

In damaged plants, yellowing first occurs, then browning, and finally drying leaves of various tiers.

The company notes that so far spider mites have almost not harmed sunflower, preferring other cultivated or wild plants. However, this year the problem has become widespread and unprecedented in scale, which created a significant threat to crop losses.

Spider mite

The beginning of the settlement of soybean spider mite crops in the Kherson and Nikolaev regions this year was observed already in early July.

The next cooling with a decrease in nighttime air temperature on some days to + 11-12 ° C suspended the development of their populations. However, with the onset of another warming with a significant increase in temperatures, which is expected already at the end of this week, the rate and intensity of reproduction of ticks will increase significantly. Accordingly, the activity of mobile stages and their harmfulness will sharply increase.

If in the future (in the third decade of July and in August) dry and hot weather with daytime air temperatures up to + 30-32 ° C is maintained, the rapid spread of spider mites to soybean crops in central, eastern and possibly even western regions is not ruled out.

The yield loss of this crop, depending on the number of phytophages, can be from 2 to 8 kg / ha.