Swiss chard is a preferred garden crop of my family and many others . It ’s a highly productive , alimental and easy - to - produce green . Swiss chard , however , is not a harvest without pest troubles . Leafminers in Swiss chard can become baffling , leave damage leaves behind . Here ’s more on key out this plague and make do it without using synthetic chemicals .
Identifying Leafminers in Swiss Chard
Like many insect pests , leafminers are easy to identify by their legal injury . While the tiny adult flies are very difficult to espy and identify , the squiggly lines their larvae leave behind are punishing to miss .
Female adult leafminers in Swiss chard lay eggs on the leaf . Once the eggs brood , the larvae travel between the layers of leaf tissue paper , tunneling out and ware the tissue inside . This produce distinctive “ trails ” on the leaves that are hard to escape . If you recognise these glazed crooked lines on your Swiss chard plant , you know leafminers are present .
Are Leafminers Worth My Concern?
gratefully , a leafminer plague typically wo n’t outright drink down a chard works , but it can affect the optic collection of this veggie and throttle your harvest . Many gardeners control this pestis simply by cutting away any leaves with signaling of leafminer damage and tossing them into the scraps . heavy farm with fully grown plantings of Swiss chard might need to take other measure .
Controlling Leafminers in Swiss Chard Organically
If the universe of leafminers on your chard harvest is fecund and induce substantial damage that ’s cutting into your bottom line , it ’s clock time to take extra standard . One of the well-fixed ways to restrain scathe from these insects is to protect the plants with a bed offloating row cover . This lightweight translucent material is station over the plant tops and forms a protective roadblock over the plants and prevent the adult leafminers from accessing the plants . Put the row cover song in position soon after planting . And , since Swiss chard does n’t require pollenation prior to crop , the covering can be left in spot all season long .
Another option is to plant a partner industrial plant between the rows of chard that naturally increase the population of predatory insects that feed on leafminers . The primary predator of leafminer larvae are parasitic wasps . Since this pestilence is between the leaf tissue paper , most predatory insects ca n’t get to it . But , parasitic wasp can easily lay their eggs inside the leafminer while it ’s still between the leaves . mellisonant madwort , dill weed and fennel are three great plant life to interplant with Swiss chard to reduce leafminers organically .
One net way to manage leafminers in Swiss chard is to plow subject field in the late autumn . This make for newly overwintering leafminer pupa to the airfoil and exposes them to predator such as snort andground beetles . It also fix them more vulnerable to block out during the wintertime .
Whether or not you take military action against leafminers in your Swiss chard patch is up to you . At my house , we only pick off infested chard leaf and toss them out . In some cases , we even just cut out the damaged leaf fortune and then deplete the remainder . Thankfully , chard is prolific enough that we always have more than enough to portion out .
