Severe Infestation of Tea Looper
How to Cope, Find Out Here
It is currently late summer and early autumn, with cool weather in the morning and evening. This year has seen more rain than usual, resulting in vigorous growth of tea plants with lush green leaves, providing rich food for tea plant pests.
According to investigations into the infestation of tea loopers in Longwu tea gardens, various age groups of larvae coexist, with severe overlapping generations. In some severely affected areas of tea gardens, the older leaves have been completely consumed, affecting the growth of tea plants, which requires close attention from tea garden managers.
Due to differences in cultivation and management practices among individual households, the timing of infestations and the degree of damage vary across different tea gardens, making Pest control challenging. It is essential to strengthen pest monitoring through field observations and the use of Trapping devices, promptly understanding the dynamics of pest outbreaks and implementing appropriate measures:
1. Turn on insect-killing lamps, taking advantage of the fact that adult tea loopers are most active between 8:00 PM and 10:00 PM. Set the operating times of the lamps accordingly, ideally using a light-controlled mode where they automatically turn on after dark and shut off after 3 hours.
2. Place Pheromone traps for tea loopers, installing 3-4 per mu (approximately 0.067 acres) at a height of about 20 cm above the top of the tea bushes, and replace the lures and sticky papers every 15-30 days.
3. During the day, when there is sunlight, tea looper larvae hide in the lower parts of the tea bushes but move up to the top for feeding in the evenings. When conducting field observations, carefully check the population density of larvae. If the population is high, take necessary chemical control measures promptly, paying attention to early intervention while the pests are still small to prevent major losses. For contiguous tea gardens, it is best to spray pesticides simultaneously; inconsistent spraying times by individual households can impact control effectiveness.
4. For scattered occurrences or tea gardens with larvae under the third instar stage, apply a suspension containing 100 billion spores/ml of short-chain bacillus diluted 500-700 times or 150-200 ml/acre of tea seed extract and Bacillus thuringiensis for control;
5. For tea gardens with a large base population, significant overlapping generations, and severe damage, apply chemical pesticides such as flubendiamide or indoxacarb, choosing to spray in the evenings without direct sunlight. The preferred method of application is low-volume spraying over the tops of the tea bushes.
6. For particularly severely affected tea gardens, closely monitor the situation of subsequent larval hatches after spraying. If new larvae emerge, spray again promptly.
7. For heavily damaged tea gardens where the leaves have already been eaten, prune them appropriately after control measures and apply fast-acting top-dressing fertilizer, such as 10 kg/acre of Urea or 15 kg/acre of compound fertilizer.
8. For tea gardens where leaves remain, pruning is not recommended. Instead, apply top-dressing fertilizer to promote the growth of the last autumn shoots. Additionally, apply foliar Fertilizers twice, spaced 7-10 days apart.
