Dealing with Eudemida in the vine

July 7, 2020 12 Comments

Those of us who have a vineyard or a bed are familiar with the blight, the insect that every year attacks the vine crop, causing significant damage to both wine-making and table grape varieties. Eudemida is also known as «grape worm». It is a small brown-green butterfly, 6-8 mm long, which usually completes 3 generations within a year, and is considered the insect that causes the greatest problems in the cultivation of the vine. So let’s see in detail what damage the Eudemida causes to the vines and in what ways it can be dealt with in order to protect our production.

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1. What damage does Eudemida cause to the cultivation of the vine?

The moth is a nocturnal butterfly that hides during the day. It is active during sunset, early evening and early morning. Each eudemis butterfly lives 5-20 days and can lay up to a hundred eggs on the flowers or on the grapes. The eggs develop into caterpillars that destroy the flowers and cause quality degradation and rot in the grapes, especially in vines and vines that have dense fruit.

In particular, the first flight of the eudemis butterflies begins in mid-April, leaving their eggs on the flowers of the vines. The flower-eating caterpillars of the eudemis that emerge, attack and destroy the flowers and connect them with characteristic silk threads. The butterflies of the next generation, during June, leave their eggs on the bunches and the caterpillars feed on the unripe grapes, often causing them to fall.

The most serious damage to the grapes is observed between July and September and is caused by the caterpillars of the third and fourth generation of the eudemis. At this stage, each caterpillar usually infests 1-3 nearby racemes on each grape and can destroy most of the grapes on the vine or vine. It should be noted that in grapes infested with Eudemida, fungal diseases such as botrytis and acid rot develop secondarily causing extensive rotting of the grapes during ripening.

2. In what ways is the ecological treatment of the eudemida?

In order to effectively combat the pest, it is necessary to monitor the appearance and evolution of the insect, in order to determine the exact time of interventions with the appropriate ecological preparations that we obtain from agricultural stores. In organic vine cultivation, we follow the following steps to deal with Eudemida:

• Monitoring the eudemis with traps 

We can make our own homemade eudaimida tracking traps using plastic containers by adding 4 tablespoons of vinegar and two tablespoons of sugar to a liter of wine. When the first eudemis insects are caught, it is time to take countermeasures.

• Agricultural warning bulletins 

For professional winegrowers, it is necessary to update and follow the agricultural warning bulletins of the insect population issued by the regions by the Plant Protection Centers for the operations to combat the eudemida at the appropriate time by the producers.

• Spraying with organic preparations

For the effective treatment of eudemis in an ecological way, with the start of the butterflies’ flights and the appearance of the first eggs and caterpillars, we dust or spray in time with a biological preparation of Thuringia bacillus. Also, the biological spraying with natural pyrethrum gives satisfactory results for the treatment of Eudemida, as long as the spraying is done at temperatures below 28°C.

And a secret about the eudemida on the vine

One of the plants where we can meet the eudaimida is the olive without causing any damage. In particular, a large population of eudemis is observed among the olive trees looking for food, while part of the development of the flowering generation of the eudemis takes place on the olive flowers.

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