For black currant, the gooseberry shoot aphid is especially dangerous. She climbs on young plants, twists the leaves, they stop growing and bend. And on red currants another starts up - leaf gall aphid. It also damages the leaves, but only dark leaves are formed on them and over time the leaves crumble.
How to deal with aphids on currants
1. Regardless of the type of currant, it is very effective remedy for the fight against aphids on currants is an infusion of bitter wormwood. As soon as it appears and grows 20 - 25 cm in height, dig into a bucket and pour boiling water. Leave covered for 3-4 days. Before using, add a small piece of laundry soap to the infusion and thoroughly spray the bushes, especially with inside leaves. This procedure can be performed at any time before the berries are ripe.
2. Some insects, such as the ladybug, feed on aphids and can help your garden deal with these pests. You need to somehow attract them to your site. To do this, plant plants such as yarrow or marigolds under or next to a currant bush.
3. Use a solution of tobacco dust. In a bucket with warm water mix half a kilogram of tobacco dust, a little wood ash and a piece of laundry soap. Then just spray the currant bushes. The soap is used to prevent the rain from quickly washing away the solution.
4. Various infusions and decoctions from waste perfectly help against aphids. vegetable crops on personal plot... Chopped potato tops, onion skins or the bulbs themselves, chopped garlic, paprika fruits - all this, steamed or diluted in water, will perfectly help in the fight against this pest insect. 
5. You can also prepare a decoction of chamomile, horse sorrel and dandelion. All these plants are poured with boiling water in a bucket and left for several hours. Then they just water the bushes with this broth. Don't forget to add laundry soap.
6. When folk remedies to combat aphids, they stop helping, they use chemical preparations, for example, antitlin - an insecticide of plant origin. They are treated with currants before flowering or after harvesting. You can also spray with karbofos, rovikurt, no later than 30 days before harvesting.
7. Besides different ways the fight against aphids, it is necessary to carry out preventive work. Tear off the affected leaves in time and remove them, loosen the soil under the bushes, cut out dried branches, and prevent excessive thickening of the currants. In early spring, be sure to pour boiling water over the bushes before the buds swell on the currants - the gall aphid leaves eggs under the bark and they will die.
8. As everyone knows, ants are relatives of aphids and feed on the substance that it secretes. Therefore, it is better to start a high-quality fight against aphids on currants with getting rid of ants on yours. Both folk remedies (soda, millet) and chemical preparations (for example, "Anteater") can help you with this. 
Very many insect pests come to your garden together with planting material, so carefully review the purchased seedlings and process them with a solution ammonia or potassium permanganate.
The appearance of reddish swelling-galls on the leaves of white or red currants, and on the black - folded leaves indicates that they have started up in the berry dangerous pests... It is hosted by aphids on currants. Red-gall and currant hairy aphids usually settle on red and white, and gooseberry shoot aphids on black. At favorable conditions(dry, hot weather) colonies of pests grow rapidly and can cause significant damage to plants and significantly reduce the yield of berries. Therefore, it is necessary to fight aphids on currants throughout the summer.
Briefly about the pest
The life cycle of aphids is very short, in one summer it can change up to 10 generations. Young insects appear on plants in the spring from overwintered eggs, at the time of blooming of young leaves. The pest multiplies rapidly. Females give birth to offspring without fertilization (parthenogenesis), and only females are born. When the colony on currants grows quite strongly, and the affected shoots and leaves begin to wither, not providing the pests with enough food, then winged forms of aphids begin to appear en masse, which easily fly to healthy shoots and neighboring bushes. With the onset of autumn, males begin to be born. During sexual reproduction, females lay eggs on the shoots near the buds, which will remain for the winter.
Digesting the juice sucked from the plant, the aphids secrete sweet droplets - honeydew, or honeydew - that attract other insects, especially ants. Usually, a lot of ants will scurry up and down the branches if the currant is affected by this pest. They not only do not eat aphids (as some think), but rather carefully guard them, transfer them to intact shoots. Ants guard, cherish and even “milk” (tickling the belly with their antennae) “herds” of their “cows” for the sake of droplets of a sweet span. It should be noted that aphids always respond to "milking", allocating a sweet drop for their guards. Therefore, if you are going to fight aphids on currants, you should first get rid of the anthills nearby.
Control methods
If currant bushes are slightly affected by aphids and the number of bushes is small, then you can try to get rid of the pest without using pesticides. On large plantings, the struggle is waged chemicals... When spraying, it should be borne in mind that the aphid colony is located on the underside of the leaves, therefore, it is necessary to ensure that the solution gets to the places where the pests are concentrated.
- If leaves with reddish swellings (galls) are found on the berry fields, they must be cut off and destroyed (better - burned). You should also do with lumps of twisted leaves at the ends of the shoots.
- You can effectively fight aphids using an infusion made from a mixture of tobacco (makhorka) and wood ash (400 g per 10 liters of water).
- For spraying against aphids, you can use a solution of soda ash at the rate of 1 tbsp. spoon for 1 liter of water. Add soap to the solution.
- Many gardeners fight aphids with celandine infusion. For 10 liters of water, about 3.5 kg of fresh grass is taken and infused for a day, then the affected bushes are sprayed. During processing, you should use funds individual protection, since celandine juice is poisonous.
- You can fight an aphid infestation with an infusion of onion feathers (3-4 kg) or onion peel(200 g), which are kept in 10 liters of water for 3-4 days (finely chopped heads can be used).
- You can get rid of aphids using ordinary wood ash. 200 - 250 grams should be poured with boiling water and left to cool. In the strained solution, add soap (you can - inexpensive liquid), bring the volume to 10 liters.
- On large plantations of currants, the fight against aphids is carried out with chemical preparations. The following insecticides can be effectively used for these purposes: Vofatox, Kinmiks, Karbofos, Aktara, Rovikurt and others. Spraying is carried out before bud break, again - immediately after the leaves appear and the third time in the summer, but no later than 30 days before harvest.
It should be noted that planting plants that repel aphids next to currants reduces the damage to the bushes by pests. Such plants include: onions, tomatoes, dill, garlic, parsley, mint, basil, coriander, tansy, marigolds, yarrow. The use of a set of measures allows you to almost completely get rid of aphids in the garden.
What is a leaf gall aphid colonizing shrubs of red, white and black currants? This small insect is about 2.2 millimeters long. It refers to the sucking representatives. A favorite delicacy, which is young growing shoots and currant leaves. Pests are kept in colonies on the underside of the leaf plate. In places damaged by aphids, neoplasms of dark red, cherry or yellow color in the form of swellings and tubercles, which are called galls.
Pest life cycle
Gall aphids overwinter on currants in the stage of eggs, which the female lays on the bark in the fall annual shoots next to the kidneys. With the arrival of spring and the established positive air temperature, when the buds begin to bloom, the larvae hatch. A wingless generation of hungry aphids is born, which needs something to feed on. Young, not yet formed currant leaves and green succulent shoots become the main food source for the pest.
By the month of July, when the growth of shoots and currant leaves stops, the gall aphid has wings, and it leaves the bushes. The pest migrates mainly to wild and varietal herbaceous plants, where it continues to feed on their juice. Over the summer, more than one or two generations of this pest manage to appear. Surprisingly, aphids, like other insects, are very prolific. By autumn, around September, the pests return back to the currant bushes for laying eggs.
Gall aphids are especially dangerous for young currant bushes. Hot weather conditions and availability a large number pest on garden plot able to destroy young plants. Damaged leaves and young shoots roll up and dry out. On mature shrubs, the berries become smaller, the yield of plants decreases.
Control measures for gall midge
The basis of the fight against leaf gall aphids on garden currant plantations is prevention. Here are the main preventive measures:
IMPORTANT: Beneficial insects such as ladybug and lacewing can destroy a significant number of pests. If you notice that these assistants have appeared on the site, then it is better to refrain from using insecticides.
To attract beneficial insects that can significantly reduce the population of gall aphids on currant bushes, it is worth taking care of planting special nectar-bearing plants. It can be marigolds, alissum. Ladybugs can be attracted by planting compositae plants in the garden:
- Tansy;
- Yarrow;
- Daisies.
Many insects useful for the garden are attracted by the planting of dill and buckwheat. In addition, using special baits, you can make ladybirds and lacewings to live on their backyard. To do this, you can spray the plants with Wheast spray on the plants.
In advanced cases, in order to protect currant bushes from leaf gall aphids, insecticides are used. Spraying is carried out in three steps:
- The first is done at the time of flowering currants, when the buds bloom;
- The second - after the shrubs have faded;
- Third, after the harvest is complete.
Second spraying from aphids experienced gardeners recommend to produce natural insecticidal solutions. Here are some recipes for their preparation:
Tobacco infusion
- Makhorka or tobacco dust - 400-800 gr.
- Water - 10 liters.
- Laundry soap - 100 gr.
Pour makhorka or tobacco dust with water and let it brew for several days. Then the infusion is filtered through cheesecloth and the resulting liquid is diluted with another 10 liters of water with the addition of grated soap.
An infusion of marigolds proved to be an effective remedy for leaf gall aphids:
- Dry chopped marigolds - 1/2 10 liter bucket
- Water - 10 liters
- Laundry soap - 40 grams
Marigolds are filled with warm water and infused for 2 days. After that, the prepared solution is filtered and grated soap is added. Everything is mixed until the soap is completely dissolved.
And a few more recipes for phyto infusions to combat leaf gall aphids on currants:
Infusion of red capsicum
To prepare the concentrate, you will need the following ingredients:
- Red hot peppers(raw pods) - 1 kg;
- Water - 10 liters;
- Laundry soap - 30-40 grams.
Cut the pepper and put it in an enamel bowl. Then pour cold water and put on fire. After the contents boil, simmer over low heat for about 1 hour. Then let cool and place in warm place for several days. Next, filter the resulting concentrate, bottle it, and store it in a cool room.
" Currant
Each currant berry is an incomparable storehouse of vitamins, a source for delicious homemade preparations, fruit drinks and pie filling. Without exaggeration, good, bountiful harvest inflated pot-bellied shiny berries - the desire of any gardener. It is quite real, with the right variety of bushes, taking into account the climate, and proper care for them.
The reasons for which leaves and whole fresh shoots begin to dry are most often fungal infections and pests.
- spider mite;
- kidney mite;
- currant glass jar;
- currant leaf gall midge;
- currant shoot gall midge;
- leaf gall aphid;
- gooseberry shoot aphid.
Currants are ill from the following infections:
- spheroteka;
- anthracnose;
- septoria;
- columnar rust;
- goblet rust.
Most often, currant bushes suffer from a variety of aphids and kidney mites.
Kidney mite, methods of dealing with it
This pest lives on the currant bush all its life. A very small insect, the body length of the female is only 1.5-3 mm, and the males are even smaller... Insects hibernate and lay eggs in the buds of the plant. When the larvae hatch, there is not enough space for them, respectively, they move to neighboring buds, capturing new shoots. Thus, the entire currant bush is affected, and then neighboring currant bushes and other plants - raspberries, gooseberries and others - also fall ill.
Of course, the shoot does not develop if it is affected by the pest. If such branches grow, then only in a mutated form. Accordingly, the yield also decreases. In addition to reducing the number of berries, mites also cause other harm. They carry many infections that can affect plants, including viral curl or marbling. In this disease, the leaves curl up and become sticky, almost like aphids.
There are a lot of methods for dealing with ticks that have settled on currants:
Pouring boiling water
The way to solve the problem is the most environmentally friendly and with minimal cost. The method is quite effective - all larvae die during scalding., and the bush is only getting stronger and stronger.
The use of boiling water has its own nuances:
- no need to use steep boiling water, enough temperature 60-80 degrees;
- it will be more convenient to pour over the branches if tie them together;
- ticks begin activity with the first warm rays, if the bush has already begun to bloom, then you cannot water it with boiling water... Processing must be done before the appearance of a "green haze";
- dousing can also additionally in late autumn.
Manual deletion
This method requires concentration and patience. Sorting the kidneys in order to remove the tick is necessary in early spring before opening them.
This method has two significant drawbacks.... First, it is very difficult to distinguish a visually healthy kidney from the one in which the larvae have lurked. Secondly, there is a high probability of cutting off full-fledged healthy shoots, especially at the end of the inspection of the plant.
When choosing this method, all removed kidneys must be collected in one bucket and incinerated.
Sulfur chemicals
The most popular and effective sulfur-based preparations are:
- colloidal sulfur;
- lime-sulfuric broth.
Ticks cannot tolerate sulfur in any form. Preventive spraying with sulfur-containing solutions is a guarantee that pests will not settle on the bushes.
If the plant is severely affected, then you need to prepare a sulfur solution in proportions of 10 grams per 1 liter of water, and treat the plant with it. Bushes are treated with sulfur twice:
- before flowering or at the beginning, use a 2% solution;
- after flowering - 1% or 1.5% mixture with sulfur.
There is a significant risk of remaining in the year of processing in this way without a crop, however these chemicals completely destroy both the tick itself and fungal infections... It is important to follow the recommendations specified in the instructions for the chemicals in order to comply with safety measures when working with it.
Pruning
This is an extreme, drastic measure. If a tick suddenly turns out to be resistant to everything in the world, and this, although very rare, but happens, the plant is cut off at the root in late autumn, or it is completely dug up, that is, it is completely destroyed.
After the destruction of the diseased bush, as well as after trimming it, the entire tool with which the work was carried out must be disinfected, if possible, it is also good to calcine it additionally.
Folk remedies and methods
Also, the affected shoots were doused with a steep garlic broth - 200-300 grams of peeled garlic per 10 liters of water.
If flowering has already begun, then the bushes are sprayed with decoctions from plants such as:
- tobacco is a plant, but the tobacco that is used in production is also suitable;
- dandelion;
- Walnut.
Taking advantage of folk recipes, it must be remembered that these measures are good if the spread of the tick is insignificant. If the area affected by the pest is large, then more effective measures should be taken.
For the prevention of tick activity, there is nothing better than acaricides... This is a modern line chemicals wide range action, which means helping not only to combat ticks, but also other pests and a number of diseases. The preparations are very widely presented in any of the gardening stores and are a complete alternative to sulfur, having its effect, but without harming the bush.
Aphids on white, black and red currants, how to fight?
Swelling on currant leaves is a sign of aphids. Aphids usually settle on the bushes of the white and red varieties:
- red-gall;
- currant hairy.
Black gooseberry aphid loves the same.
Dangerous for diseased plants and extremely favorable for aphids are weather conditions such as:
- arid;
- hot;
- sunny.
All the wonderful days for relaxing at the dacha, as if intended for barbecue and mowing lawns, are loved not only by humans, but also by aphids. You have to deal with this pest constantly, since life cycle individual is very short, and per summer season can change from 10 to 15 generations in one insect colony.
The aphid that settled on the currant is a very small insect, on average, the body length is only 2.2 mm. In close congestion, pests look like a spot of light grayish, yellow or green shades.
Aphids feed on the juice of currant leaves, biting into them from the back. Even a small settlement of these pests takes a lot of energy from the bush., significantly reducing not only the yield, but also the growth and development of currants.
The waste of aphids is the honeydew, or, as it is also called, honeydew - a favorite delicacy of ants. There is a widespread misconception that ants eat aphids, helping the summer resident to fight it. It's not like that at all. on the contrary, ants carefully protect the pest colonies and even spread aphids, transferring them to fresh shoots and neighboring bushes.
Aphids and ants are a natural symbiosis of species, therefore it is extremely important, starting the fight against aphids, to destroy anthills.
You can get rid of pest colonies in the following popular ways:
- noticing swollen leaves on the bushes, shoots with twisted lumps of leaves, you need to immediately, without putting off, cut and burn;
- helps well spraying bushes and processing each leaf with an infusion of ash and makhorka, prepared in such a proportion - 400-500 grams per 10 liters of water;
- good effect gives hand washing each sheet and then spraying the whole plant with a solution of soap and soda - a lot of soap and a tablespoon of soda per liter of water;
- celandine is poisonous for aphids, therefore, having prepared an infusion in a proportion of 3.5-4 kg of freshly cut celandine per 10 liters of water, you can spray the bushes, both already affected and outwardly healthy, but you need to wear gloves and a respirator, since celandine can cause severe irritation;
- simply wash every leaf with soap and escape, the household one is best.
Apart from these widely accepted and sufficient simple ways, pesticides and insecticides can be used against aphids, such as:
- vofatox;
- karbofos;
- kinmix;
- aktara;
- rokyvoort.
The list of drugs offered to gardeners by the industry is quite large and varied, but whichever one you choose, you will have to spray the bushes three times:
- in the spring, before bud break;
- after the appearance of leaves;
- in summer, about a month before picking berries (July - August, depending on the variety).
For preventive measures, in order to initially scare off aphids, it is good to plant plants next to currants that it does not tolerate:
- Dill;
- tomatoes;
- garlic;
- mint;
- parsley;
- basil;
- coriander;
- tansy;
- marigold.
It will be most effective to apply comprehensive measures, including the detection and baiting of ants. Getting rid of aphids completely is difficult, but quite possible.
What if the currant dries?
There are many reasons due to which the bushes may begin to turn yellow and dry, but they can all be divided into three categories:
- natural circumstances;
- the action of pests;
- plant diseases.
TO natural reasons can be attributed weather, such as drought. The wrong place in which the bush grows is too sunny and dry, or, conversely, moisture stagnation, which causes rotting of the roots.
Diseases leading to plant drying out are usually carried by insects. The most common ones are:
- veined and striped mosaics;
- anthracnose, a fungal infection requiring immediate action;
- powdery mildew, both European and American;
- cercosporosis;
- rust, both goblet and columnar.
If the origins of the drying of currants are due to weather reasons, for example, in a sultry and sunny summer, then it is easy to deal with it. You just need to provide watering. They drink a lot of bushes, from 1.5 to 2 x buckets per day... During the ripening period of the berries, the amount of water received by the plant should be increased to three buckets.
You can not water the currants with cold water, from such care the plant can get sick. The water should warm up well in the sun. To do this, you can dial it in the morning, leaving it for the day.
In the event that the bush dries up due to rotting of the roots, due to their flooding, which is typical for a very rainy summer, the actions should be as follows:
- pour earth under the plant;
- dig drainage grooves around the bush, at a distance of 50-60 cm.
After the completion of heavy rains, when the earth dries up, the drainage layer must be filled up, since the currant is a moisture-loving plant, and under normal conditions it does not need water drainage.
If the bushes dry out due to the fault of insects or diseases, then appropriate measures must be taken.
Not every modern summer resident understands types of insect pests or a variety of plant diseases. That's why very popular chemicals with a wide complex action, such substances include:
- sulfur;
- phosphomide;
- karbofos;
- vitriol;
- bordeaux liquid;
- phytosporin;
- foundationol.
Fungal infections, such as anthracnose, require fungicide treatment of the bush as soon as possible. The causative agent of the disease, a fungus, starts in fallen leaves. That's why it is extremely important to remove foliage from the site and burn it... The disease itself manifests itself in the middle of summer, in the form of red-brown spots on the leaves. If the disease is not cured, the "rash" will capture all the leaves, eventually exposing the bush, and infect neighboring plants.
Red-brown spots on currant leaves are a sign of anthracnose As preventive measures against insects and diseases, the following are very effective:
- processing of currants and soil under it 2% solutions of nitrophene or karbofos in the spring. Before bud break;
- periodic spraying during the summer of the bushes with foundation.
Often the currant dries simply because the bush is old. In this case, either you need to rejuvenate it by pruning, or dig it out, and, after disinfecting and fertilizing the soil, plant a new one.
It is not so difficult to ensure that the currants bear fruit well, do not hurt or dry out. It is enough just to comply with some conditions:
- right choose a place for the bushes not too dry and without stagnant water;
- provide watering into drought;
- remove dead leaves;
- prophylactically process plants;
- attentively monitor the state bushes.
Subject to these simple rules, currants will certainly delight from year to year with large, juicy, tasty and very healthy berries.