How to protect the grape harvest from wasps and protect it for the entire ripening period

Although wasps are not the most dangerous pests of grapes, nevertheless, they can significantly spoil the appearance of the bunches. For growers who grow fruits for direct sale, this is especially true - sometimes just two or three berries bitten by insects completely deprive the bunch of its marketable appearance. In such cases, the desire to protect grapes from wasps is quite understandable, because it is directly related to the issue of profitability of growing crops.

In addition, wasps, in most cases, do not completely eat out the berries already damaged by them, but begin to gnaw and spoil new ones, and indiscriminately: both already damaged bunches and still untouched. As a result, even a relatively small number of insects can spoil a significant proportion of a ripe crop. Of course, it will fit for processing for making wine, but it will be more difficult to sell such spoiled grapes, and it will be stored for much less time.

Review

“My wasps regularly beat the grapes, and at the time of harvesting, not a single bunch remains untouched.By the way, I noticed such a nuance: a wasp can gnaw out the pulp in a berry, and then, after a meal, make a couple of punctures on neighboring grapes. Under these punctures, the pulp begins to ferment, and after a couple of days, the insects return here for just such a “braga”. And they don’t eat properly, but they spoil a lot.”

Konstantin, Volgograd

The question of how to protect the crop and save it from regular “raids” has been worrying winegrowers for more than a dozen years, and today skilled gardeners have developed quite a lot of effective ways to protect grapes from wasps. All these methods can be divided into two groups - active and passive.

The former work on the principle “the best defense is an attack”, and the end result of their implementation is the direct destruction of the pests themselves: if not all, then at least the main part of them. Under certain conditions, these methods of dealing with wasps on grapes are very effective, but sometimes they are dangerous for the person himself.

The second group - passive methods of struggle - allow you to save grapes from wasps by creating an insurmountable mechanical barrier for insects. Such methods can be considered gentle and more environmentally friendly. After all, it should be remembered that wasps, being pests of grapes, partly help the grower himself in the fight against other unwanted insects: wasps actively destroy bugs, grasshoppers, caterpillars, aphids, which are also not averse to eating sweet berries. Therefore, even despite the laboriousness, such barrier protection of grapes from wasps is used quite often - both the wasps are full and the clusters are intact.

 

All ways to protect grapes

Now let's talk in more detail about how you can save your crop from wasps, and be able to protect it from these insects throughout the season.

Active ways to protect grapes include the following approaches:

1. Destruction of the nest of wasps - if their dwelling is liquidated before the grapes ripen, then there will be no one to spoil it. However, this method is only suitable for small private vineyards and situations where the gardener knows exactly where the nest is located on the site, because looking for it (and it may not be the only one) outside the vineyard, and even more so - in someone else's garden or garden , is extremely difficult.
2. Fight against wasps in the vineyard with special traps.
3. And the third way is the extermination of insects with the help of poisoned baits (for small farms, sometimes this is the best way to save grapes from wasps).

Passive control methods usually do not lead to the death of winged pests. These include:

1. Repelling wasps from a vineyard is a rather ambiguous method in which the clusters and bushes themselves are directly sprayed with repellent chemicals. This method allows you to protect the crop, but in the future it requires serious preparation of the grapes for eating - it must be thoroughly washed from chemicals.
2. Packing ripening bunches in special mesh protective bags. Perhaps this is the most reliable method of protecting grapes. However, it is very time-consuming and costly: for example, if on a farm with 30-40 bushes all bunches can still be relatively easily hidden in such bags, then for hundreds of bushes such packing will require a very large amount of work and costs for the nets themselves.

As you can see, you can save your crop in different ways, but in fact, choosing the most appropriate way to deal with wasps on grapes is not so difficult:

• if a nest is found on the site, it is destroyed in the first place;
• if there are no wasp nests on the site, and there are a lot of grapes, then traps and / or poisoned baits are placed between the rows of bushes, allowing you to save valuable clusters from mass sabotage (we will talk about the construction and manufacture of such traps and baits a little lower);
• on an industrial scale, you can save grapes from wasps by spraying the bushes with insecticides, and after harvesting, wash the berries in special devices;
• in small farms with expensive grape varieties, it is rational to hide the bunches in protective bags.

Review

“We were furious when we started noticing that half of our Elite Red Rose was being literally gnawed off by wasps. Moreover, the wasps do not eat the grapes completely, but only gnaw the bottom of the berry to the level of the seeds and leave such hanging peels to dry. Nightmare. We didn't even know what to do. Neighbors said that you can put on special bags for grapes from wasps to protect the bunches. We immediately bought such nets, but we have a lot of grapes, and the nets cost money, as it were, a considerable amount. The Red Rose was closed, and the wine and all the green dining rooms were then collected beaten. Here, we are preparing traps for wasps for the new season, I really don’t want to face such a problem again. ”

Ludmila, Tuapse

 

Wasp traps

The main advantage of wasp traps is their high efficiency and at the same time safety for humans - they can be used to get rid of pests without the risk of being bitten and without spraying the grapes themselves with potentially dangerous chemicals.

Such traps are made from ordinary plastic bottles. The top third of the bottle is cut off, turned upside down and inserted into the bottom. Previously, the bait is poured into the lower half: beer with sugar, fermented jam, mash or kvass with bread.

Photo traps for wasps:

Important!

Do not use a honey solution or sweet syrup as a bait, on which bees that are useful and do not spoil the grapes can flock.

The wasp, having penetrated through the inverted neck into the bottle, will no longer be able to get out of the trap: instinctively taking off along the walls, it will not be able to find a way out, and as a result, it will simply drown in the liquid bait. If you place such traps on the site and regularly fill them from the beginning of summer, you can almost completely get rid of wasps on grapes.

Practice shows that from several tens to a couple of hundred insects can fly into one such bottle per day. Traps can be hung on supports for grapes, placed in conspicuous places among the rows: the more there are, the more reliable it will be to protect your crop (experienced gardeners recommend installing at least one trap near each bush).

 

Poisoned baits and the safety of grapes

One of the most effective ways to protect grapes from wasps is to use poisoned baits.Some of these remedies lead to the death of insects only a few hours after eating, while others begin to act almost instantly.

It is worth noting that when choosing this method of protecting grapes, you need to remember one important feature: the bait should not have a strong "chemical" smell (otherwise the wasps will simply ignore it). To date, there are a number of poisonous agents that meet this requirement - for example, powerful insecticidal preparations "Lambda Zone", "Delta Zone", "Get" and some others. All of them are practically odorless, relatively safe for humans and pets, but at the same time they have an excellent poisoning ability in relation to insects.

The baits are poured into saucers, cut off the bottoms of plastic bottles or into wide mugs and placed in prominent places near the grapes: the more there are on the site, the more reliably it will be possible to protect the grapes. As it is eaten by insects and natural evaporation, the poisoned delicacy must be added.

As a basis for the preparation of poisoned bait, sour jam, beer or kvass with sugar is usually used, in which, in addition to the above preparations, boric acid or chlorophos can also be added in a ratio of 10: 1 (10 parts of the base are taken for one part of the insecticide). Boric acid and chlorophos are also odorless, and therefore the treats will be invisible to insects in the composition.

Sweet and easily accessible "treats" in saucers are good at attracting wasps flying to grapes, and as a result, soon after feeding, lead to the death of insects.

Sometimes meat or lard treated with boric acid or another odorless insecticide is also used as bait. The wasps bite off small pieces and carry them to their nest, where they feed the larvae and the queen, which later die.

 

Destroying the nest of insects

Destroying a nest of wasps is a rather time-consuming and dangerous operation. The fact is that these insects, protecting the nest, can attack with a whole swarm, and therefore all actions should be carried out in tight clothes, a beekeeper's mask and, if possible, at night.

Usually wasp nests are located under the roofs of outbuildings, in cavities under the slate, between the finishing material and the wall of the house itself, in the cavities of pipes.

There are several ways to destroy a nest:

• douse with gasoline and burn;
• drown in a bucket of water;
• place in a bag with an insecticide solution previously poured into it;
• spray aerosol insecticides on wasp dwellings.

When choosing the first option of destruction (burning), it is imperative to remember about fire safety measures - the wasp nest is built of paper-like material, so it flares up well and quickly. At the same time, there is a serious danger of fire spreading to nearby buildings or trees.

To drown the dwelling of the wasps, you will need a ladder of suitable height, with which it will be possible to support a bucket of water from below, pressing it together with the nest inside to the ceiling.

Treatment with insecticidal aerosols usually has to be carried out several times - for each dose, the drug will destroy a significant number of adult insects and larvae (some of the wasps will scatter). Of course, this method requires a systematic approach, but it is relatively simple to implement and at the same time quite effective.

To destroy a particularly large or hard-to-reach nest of wasps, you can also call firefighters or a special team of exterminators. In many cases, this allows not only to save the grapes, but also to protect the owners of the site from regular bites.

 

Mesh bags to protect clusters: rules of use, advantages and disadvantages

Even before the advent of specialized protective bags made of fine mesh, old women's tights were used, which simply covered the bunches. This made it possible to save grapes from wasps with great reliability.

However, as the grapes ripened, the berries in such a grid choked, which is why the question arose of the need for a specialized solution. So there were bags to protect the grapes from wasps from a thick polyethylene mesh with ties that freely fit the bunch and do not limit its growth. Today on sale there are nets for grapes the size of a liter and three-liter jars.

The main disadvantage of such bags for grapes is the difficulty of their use with a large number of bushes. However, they provide the most reliable protection for the bunches, avoid the use of insecticides and can be used for several years in a row.

Putting bags for grapes on bunches should be when you find the first berries beaten by insects. In this case, you should always use bags with a margin of size.

You can also ward off wasps from grapes by spraying them with special substances - either strong-smelling or toxic to insects.

There are some folk remedies for this purpose: experienced gardeners recommend, for example, using vinegar - wine or ordinary table.It is easily washed off from the clusters by rain, is not toxic, but at the same time it allows you to temporarily scare away the wasps and retains its effect for several days or even weeks.

You can also treat grapes with Thiovit Jet, Kinmiks and some others like them, but after harvesting, it will be necessary to thoroughly wash all the bunches of chemicals.

Liquid smoke, which is usually used in home smokehouses, will also help scare away wasps from grapes - they cultivate the soil under the bushes. The smell of smoke, as a rule, repels wasps, however, as practice shows, the effectiveness of this remedy is still very limited, and even after its application, part of the grapes is still damaged.

 

A useful video with a good example of protecting grapes from wasps

 

Making very effective wasp traps with your own hands and demonstrating their work