The reed-glass win culinary cicade could cause considerable grain losses.
Photo: Michael F. Schönitzer/CC-BY-4.0
Hardly as big as a fingernail, with a somewhat angular head, round of spherical eyes and thin transparent front wings, which she owes her name: the reed-gla-winged cinge is pretty, but shells farmers in fear and terror. The species was recently considered to be threatened with extinction and is still on the red list. But while the populations of other types of insects collapse, this zicade is spreading further and further – and brings the bacterial plant diseases of Syndrome Bass Richesses (SBR) and Stolbur.
Farmers and agricultural industries describe the location at most dramatically. Georg Vierling spoke of an “apocalypse” from the southern sugar group. Bernhard Conzen, the chairman of the Working Group on German beet construction associations (ADR), believes that the “basic supply of the population with domestic food” is at risk. In fact, this year’s harvest in potatoes and beets could be less than half if it is not possible to curb the cicadas.
The species was recently considered to be threatened with extinction.
The insect benefits from the climate and biodiversity crisis. The female cicadas lay eggs in the arable floor around the month of May, near beets and roots. Their larvae, also called nymphs, first live underground after hatching and feed on underground plant parts on which they suck. The cicadas climb the surface and fly open. Always longer and dry summer and mild winter are cheap for you. There can even be two generation within one year. Due to the rising temperatures, the zikade has been moving north since 2008, when the first infestation in Germany has been reported. She also benefits from the fact that some of her natural enemies (bugs, spiders, ants, birds) become less common.
On the other hand, the reed-gla-wing culinary cicade shows a remarkable adaptability. Since their original habitats such as broken forests, swamps and bogs have been drained in many ways, it opens up one agricultural culture after the other. At first they only ate sugar beet, then potatoes and parsnips, now also asparagus, carrots and beetroot. The infected vegetables become lax and flexible, the leaves become wilted and narrow. Infested sugar beets are clearly called “rubber beets”, they contain significantly less sugar. Potatoes and parsnips can only be used as animal feed or not at all.
In April there was an emergency approval of insecticides that the German Farmers’ Association (DBV) and the agricultural industry had requested, among other things for neonotinoids. These nerve toxins are taken up by plants and in the next step by insects that touch or eat. They are jointly responsible for the bee death, and three funds from this group were banned in the EU in 2018. The Federation for Environmental and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND) assumes that neonotinoids are now injected to over 125,000 hectares. Because of the drift, even over 500,000 hectares are actually affected. The alliance for neonikotinoid -free agriculture (BNL) fears an “ecological clear cut in the insect world”. Environmentalists and beekeepers also complain that the public is not informed where these insecticides are applied.
The damage can be contained with neonicinoids, but the glass wing cubes will not disappear from the fields. This would require a bundle of long -term countermeasures. Resistant sugar beet, which the SBR bacteria cannot harm, will only be available in a few years. The most important thing would be to adapt the crop rotations. If the field remains undeveloped in winter – the so -called black wasteland – the nymphs find no food. However, all farmers have to stick to this in a distribution area, for several years as possible. The trend is in the opposite direction: the farmers use more and more simple but profitable crop rotations – such as grain after beets – and treat the ground less and less calm and regeneration. Otherwise this pest could not have spread.
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