How to get rid of mole crickets in the garden forever

Updated: August 9, 2020

Mole cricket (cabbage weed, earthen crayfish) is an insect that has an unpleasant appearance and brings incredible harm to crops growing in the garden. It comprehensively harms the plant, affecting its shoots, leaves, fruits and root system. If you do not notice its harmful effects in time, you can lose the entire harvest. Every gardener who has encountered this pest wonders how to get rid of mole crickets in the garden. This article covers all issues related to control methods and contains practical recommendations for prevention.

General information about mole cricket

This is an insect from the cricket family. It has a brown shell, but the abdomen is greenish. An adult individual can reach a length of more than 10 cm, the most common are individuals measuring 5-6 cm. Distinctive external features include:

Strongly developed front digging limbs in the form of scoops and shovels . This adaptation helps them dig tunnels in the soil. At shallow depths they form nests, the walls of which consist of hard lumps of earth. The adults themselves live more deeply.
A gnawing apparatus with an extended jaw. Evolution has made their mouthparts highly developed so that insects can easily gnaw on the roots, shoots and fruits of plants that gardeners grow in their summer cottages.
Chitinous shell on the cephalothorax. It protects the insect from mechanical damage. When threatened, it hides part of its body underneath it.

The mole cricket is nocturnal. During the daytime it becomes easy prey for birds. By making moves in the ground, it is able to find food for itself during daylight hours and hide from threats. It is universal in type of nutrition. It feeds on both plant and animal foods (earthworms, smaller insects and pests of their own kind). The main habits of cabbage mushrooms that can help determine their presence in the garden plot:

Presence of holes in the soil . They can be confused with the burrows of moles and shrews. However, if you dig up the soil to a shallow depth, there may be nests with eggs there. And this is direct evidence of their presence.
Mowed areas of grass near burrows can also help locate pests. They do this to increase the heated surface of the soil so that the eggs develop faster.
During the day you are unlikely to find all the individuals. Most often they come out at night to find a new place. This must be taken into account when searching for their location.
Medvedka loves moist, loose soils located in sunny areas . Here the probability of their appearance is much higher, however, insects can also be located in clayey and sandy soils. They are very adaptable.
Night chirping . The chirping of mole crickets is distinguished by lower sound frequencies. This is their way of communication.
Does not nest near plantings of parsley, garlic, onions and other strong and pungently smelling plants. Such aromas can repel pests. But they love cabbage, corn, beets, potatoes, carrots . You can find them much more often here.

How to cook sea bear?

This type of shrimp can be prepared in quite standard ways - boiled or fried. Only the process of cooking sea mole crickets takes a longer time - at least thirty minutes, especially if they are large shrimp.

And you don’t have to change the frying process and follow the traditional recipe for preparing the delicacy. It is enough to fry the bear in vegetable oil, adding a little soy sauce and garlic to the dish.

But, in addition to the standard processes for preparing snacks from this seafood, there is also the option of creating a real culinary masterpiece. This is what we will talk about in the next section.

How to get rid of mole crickets in the garden using ready-made products

Fighting mole crickets in the garden with the help of chemicals can be detrimental to the composition and fertility of the soil. In addition, cultivated plants growing nearby are severely affected. These measures are extreme and are used in case of a strong concentration of insects in a personal plot. Regardless of the type and class of hazard, it is recommended to adhere to the following safety and protection measures when using:

Avoid the presence of children and animals in the treated area. Fumes of poisons negatively affect the nervous system of living organisms.
Use all protective measures: gloves, closed clothing, special respirator. All containers and objects that come into contact with insecticides must be isolated. Make sure that children and animals do not reach them.
Strict adherence to drug concentrations is important. Carefully read the attached instructions for use.

Below are the most effective remedies for mole crickets in the garden that will help eliminate pests forever.

Antimedvedka

Range of action. Protects vegetable crops, ornamental plantings, shrubs and trees. The action is based on attracting insects and then eating the poison. It blocks their nervous system, causing paralysis.

Release form . Packages with microgranules, packaged in 250 or 300 g.

Active substance . Imedacloprid.

Mode of application . At a distance of 10 cm from the plants or the intended place for planting seedlings, make holes 2-5 cm deep. Pour a teaspoon of the drug into them. Possible use in the discovered habitats of earthen crayfish.

Efficiency . The duration of the drug is 2-3 weeks. After this time, it is necessary to re-process.

Chops

Release form . Brown and green granules.

Active substance . Fipronil.

Mode of application . Similar to other granular products, it is scattered into depressions in the soil near the planted plants or the intended planting site.

Efficiency . Not resistant to moisture and sunlight. Maintains effect for two weeks.

Grizzly

Spectrum of action . It is not a phytotoxic agent, therefore it is used in vegetable, fruit and berry plantings. The effect is achieved 2 days after the pest enters the body.

Release form . Plastic packages containing brown granules that require subsequent grinding. Weight is 20 g.

Active substance . Diazonin and other compounds that attract cabbage weeds and other pests.

Mode of application . Several granules of the drug are placed in holes 5 cm deep. Treatment is carried out in the spring, in the places where vegetables and other crops are supposed to be planted.

Efficiency . The action continues for several weeks. However, unfavorable weather conditions can reduce the protective properties of the drug.

Medvetox

Spectrum of action . Effectively fights mole crickets by blocking nerve impulses. The effect appears as soon as possible after treatment.

Release form . Packages with 30 or 100 gr. chemical.

Active substance . Diazonin.

Mode of application . Place the granules in shallow holes, and then pour plenty of water.

Efficiency. The action lasts about 3 months. Differs in weak dependence on weather conditions.

Wofatox

Spectrum of action . Destroys all pests living on the land. It is highly effective - within a few hours it leads to death of adults and larvae.

Release form . Powder or ampoules with liquid product.

Active substance . Bifenthrin and imedacloprid.

Mode of application .
Depending on the type of product, it is used strictly according to the instructions. The peak of action lasts for 15 days. Afterwards, the effectiveness gradually decreases. Complete disintegration after 45 days.

Description

The garden mole cricket is a large insect, reaching a length of 5 cm, although some gardeners claim that they have met individuals up to 15 cm long. What does a mole cricket look like? Its soft abdomen is spindle-shaped and about a centimeter in diameter, three times longer than the cephalothorax. At the end of the dark brown abdomen there are cerci - paired thread-like appendages up to 1 cm long. The chest is protected by a hard shell, under which the mole cricket can partially hide its head. The insect's eyes are large and complex; there are also a pair of tentacles on the head, long antennae and very strong jaws. The front pair of mole cricket limbs with claws are designed so that it is convenient for her to dig the ground.

Mole crickets have wings, but in order for their muscles to work, they need warm air, so mole crickets do not fly often, but they swim quite quickly. At night, especially during the mating season, mole crickets sing - they emit powerful trills, chirp and chirp, using the friction of their wings for this.

Mole crickets make a nest at a shallow depth, approximately 6x6 cm in size, and lay up to five hundred dark yellow eggs with a diameter of 4-5 mm in it, from which larvae emerge about two weeks later. The larva of the mole cricket beetle has a body shape similar to an adult insect, but it is not dark brown, but gray. The mole cricket larva grows for several years.

Moles: how dangerous they are and how to get rid of them

We will tell you what methods exist to combat mole crickets, how to fight mole crickets in the garden using folk remedies, and whether it is possible to get rid of mole crickets forever.

Folk remedies for mole crickets in the garden

If the question arises of how to get rid of mole crickets in the garden, you can resort to traditional methods of protection. There are several options that can be used independently or in combination. The cumulative effect will be justified if you combine means of different effects.

Way	Preparation	Usage
Soap solution	Add crushed laundry soap to the water and stir the solution until completely dissolved.	It is necessary to pour the resulting liquid into the mole cricket burrows. Flooding will force them to crawl out, after which the insects are destroyed.
Traps	You need to take cans or plastic bottles with the top cut off. Honey, oil or beer are used to fill the containers. Grease the edges of the containers with sugar syrup and pour a mixture of water and oil or beer inside.	Dig the jars around the entire perimeter of the site so that the necks are at ground level. During the night, the insects will fall into the traps, and then it will be necessary to destroy them manually.
Eggshell	Grind the eggshells and add unrefined sunflower oil to it.	Make shallow grooves next to the plantings and place the shells there. Pests will be attracted by the pleasant aroma and will make them eat the bait. It will injure the insect's digestive tract and lead to their death.
Birch tar	Dissolve 1 tbsp. tar in 4 l. water. Take the sawdust and pour the resulting solution over it. Wait until the sawdust absorbs the liquid.	Make grooves 2-3 cm deep next to each seedling and place the resulting mass in them in a dense layer.
Barrier methods	Take broken glass, crushed shells, brick chips and ash.	It is necessary to make deep furrows surrounding the beds or front gardens in a ring. They contain a mixture of traumatic materials. Additional treatment with kerosene is possible to increase the effectiveness of the barrier method.

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There is control over the bear!

A large number of chemical means of combating mole crickets are for the most part not as effective as manufacturers promise.

Therefore, people have to try various folk methods, of which there are quite a few. When faced with such a tenacious and omnivorous pest, it is desirable to have a remedy that will be effective even with the first and only use.

Medvedka loves gardeners who manure their plots well and water them regularly. The mole cricket insect attacks both above-ground parts of plants, as well as roots, root crops and even sown seeds. All vegetable crops (except garlic) and strawberries make up the mole cricket’s diet

You can fight mole crickets with peas:

* 1 kg of pea halves (namely halves);

* Remedy for the Colorado potato beetle (Fury, Aktara, Antizhuk, Decis, Confidor, etc.); * 1 liter of water. Dilute the remedy for the Colorado potato beetle in 1 liter of water, and then soak the pea halves in the solution. The peas must stand in the solution for at least 12 hours, then the halves will absorb the prepared mixture well and acquire the strength we need. Afterwards, all that remains is to scatter the halves around the garden or area where the unwanted guest was noticed. Important! Use this method during spring plowing. It is necessary that the halves end up in the ground at a depth of 15 centimeters. Why halves? Use only halves of peas, as the halves lose their ability to germinate and remain in the soil for a long time, thereby continuing their invisible battle with the mole cricket throughout the season.

And one more thing: The pea method is very effective. Only I used wheat instead of peas. The number of pests has decreased. But we still protect the seedlings with plastic.

And also a fish way to fight mole crickets, without chemicals.

The method of control is that it turns out that the insect cannot stand the smell of rotten fish. When planting seedlings of cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage, you need to put a few pieces of the cheapest fish in the hole. Even the head, bones and scales will do. The fish quickly rots, and the mole cricket avoids this place. Along the edges of the beds with carrots, beets, and green crops, I lay out pieces of fish and lightly sprinkle them with earth. While the seeds are germinating, the fish begins to deteriorate, and this smell prevents the pest from destroying the young seedlings. It is advisable to add fish during the entire period of insect activity until harvest. Or instead of fish, garlic is placed in the hole. One clove is enough. Of course, it is better to add new cloves several times during the season, but this is very easy to do.

Another new bread recipe for fighting mole crickets

In the old days there were no “poisons”, and the peasants somehow still saved their harvest.

In the fight against the mole cricket, I tried a lot: plastic rings, fabric, eggshells, and fish - all to no avail. When planting, they put sprat along with the potato tubers - it didn’t help. Plastic and fabric for a mole cricket are just a kind of fence that it easily overcomes. The neighbors took a different route: they installed rattles, but the effect was also short-lived. I had to replant the seedlings 2-3 times to new places. Last year I was advised a new way to fight, and it really turned out to be effective. In early spring, when the mole cricket is already looking for food for itself, and nothing is growing in the garden yet, I feed it with a special “treat”. I soak pieces of stale bread in this mixture: - to 1 liter of water add 1 packet of any insecticide, 1 packet or ampoule of Wofatox and 2-3 tsp. vegetable oil. Then I lower the bread into each hole along with seedlings or potato tubers. The result is excellent!!! Last summer I didn’t replant anything and was left with the harvest. Planted 2 buckets of potatoes - harvested 20! And no news from the pest. Doubts about the method? Check it out for yourself.

The easiest way to protect yourself is with Alder.

Stick several thin alder twigs around each seedling to a depth of 10-12 cm around the perimeter.

Alder is an insecticidal plant and repels mole cricket well; as it dries out, the twigs need to be changed.

You need to plant a flower along the borders of the plot - marigolds, it is unpretentious, has a specific aroma, and will reliably protect your garden from the encroachments of the mole cricket.

Bear loves beer!

Oddly enough, but a fairly effective means of combating mole crickets is... beer! The bait is prepared as follows.

Thoroughly wash several glass bottles and pour 100-150 g of fresh beer into each of them. Bury the bottles in different places in a slightly inclined position with the neck up, as shown in the figure, while the neck should be slightly higher than the ground and not touch it.

Cover the trap site with a piece of iron or old tile. Since the mole cricket is attracted to damp places, water the ground around the traps with a small amount of water from time to time, but do not allow puddles to form and make sure that the water does not get into the bottle. It is advisable to plug the neck with something before watering it.

After 6-10 days the bottle can be dug up. Pests, having penetrated it, cannot get back out along the slippery glass surface. Then, having gotten rid of the insects that came across, you can replace the beer in the trap and install it again in places where mole crickets accumulate. One such trap is quite enough for 4 m2 of area. Catching mole crickets in this way can begin with the first work on the site and end just before frost.

In the fall, before frosts, in places where there is a large concentration of mole crickets, dig several holes in a checkerboard pattern at a distance of about half a meter from each other, put horse manure in them, pour a pile of earth on top and mark them with pegs. With the onset of severe cold, open the holes and scatter the manure over the snow. Large numbers of pests hiding there for the winter will die from frost.

Fighting Medvedka with plastic bottles

And we fight mole crickets like this: we cut plastic bottles into 2 wide rings, insert them into the ground so that the seedling bush is inside the ring. The neck and bottom must be cut off. A kind of flower bed is formed. The mole cricket crawls up to the plant, rests against the plastic and goes around it.

We save up to 90% of seedlings. I would like to share a good way to get rid of the voracious mole cricket: Grind the eggshells and mix them with vegetable oil. This mixture should be placed in the passages dug by the mole cricket or in holes with plants. You will see the result.

And some people advise eating mole cricket...

You need to eat it! And don't fight her

By the way: Medvedka has been used to treat tuberculosis since ancient times.

They say that recovery occurs in 90% of cases. And this is not a joke, this is traditional medicine!

If you are seriously ill, you will probably eat more than just mole crickets to get better.

So, it’s better not to get sick!

An adult mole cricket has a dark brown body 3-5 cm long and small wings.

During the mating period, the mole cricket is capable of flying long distances. The mole cricket is adapted to an underground lifestyle.

The mole cricket overwinters in the soil at a depth of 70-80 cm. When the weather becomes warm, the mole cricket makes horizontal passages at a depth of 3-5 cm.

The presence of mole crickets on the site can be recognized by drying plants, small mounds, vertical passages 10-15 cm deep and the ground trail from their underground tunnels.

Agrotechnical methods of combating mole crickets:

Loosening the row spacing to a depth of 10 cm throughout the mole cricket’s entire egg-laying period, to destroy the mole cricket’s passages and destroy the eggs.
Refusal to fertilize plants with fresh mullein in areas where mole crickets live.
Watering the ground with chicken manure infusion in dry weather to repel mole crickets.
Planting marigolds around the perimeter of the plot; the mole cricket cannot stand their smell.
Setting up mole cricket traps in the fall at soil temperatures above +9ºC. Per hundred square meters, they dig two holes 60 cm deep, put manure in them, which is scattered when stable frosts occur.

Chemical methods of combating mole crickets based on the State catalog of pesticides approved for use on the territory of the Russian Federation in 2011:

Application to the soil during the growing season to a depth of 3-5 cm of the preparations Grom (30 g / 10 m²) and Phenaxin plus (100 g / 10 m²) - vegetable and flower crops, strawberries, potatoes, Grizzly (20 g / 10 m²) are allowed for use - flower crops are allowed for use, Medvetox (3 g/m²) – flower crops and potatoes are allowed for use. Entry period for the treated area for manual work is 7 days
Baits based on Bankol - vegetables, flowers, strawberries, and potatoes are allowed for use. To prepare 1 kg of bait you need 10 grams of Bankol, 800 grams of wheat bran, 50-100 grams of water, 50 grams of molasses (50 grams of sunflower oil). Bait consumption is 1 kg per 100 m².

How to fight the Colorado potato beetle in spring.

Preventive measures in the fight against currant pests.

Tips from experienced pest control experts.

Galimax for you

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Series of messages “Fighting pests, diseases and weeds”:
Part 1 - Environmentally friendly means against garden pests Part 2 - Pest control without chemicals ... Part 33 - Cherry pests Part 34 - Ants are the most effective methods of control Part 35 - There is a mole cricket government! Part 36 - Burdock weed and medicine Part 37 - Weeds and alcohol Part 38 - Personal safety rules when working with plant preparations Part 39 - Saving drowning people is the work of the drowning people themselves... Part 40 - Plants against garden pests - 2

How to deal with mole crickets in the garden: preventive measures

It is difficult to combat the invasion of these dangerous pests. They easily adapt to the most unfavorable environmental conditions. It is always better to prevent a problem from occurring than to deal with the consequences later. It is enough to create conditions under which it will be problematic for the mole cricket to reproduce and function:

Make protective plantings of onions, garlic, mint and other strong-smelling plants next to crops that are attacked by pests (potatoes, carrots, beets, corn, etc.). Insects are not killed by these aromas, but plants can frighten them off and force them to look for other favorable habitats.
Due to intolerance to strong aromas, you can use an attack with coniferous plants. To do this, you need to place branches of spruce, pine and other conifers next to the beds.
An excellent decorative method of protection is to plant calendula or marigolds along the perimeter of the plantings.
Carefully digging up the area and turning over the top layers of soil can destroy insect nests. Eggs quickly die in open sunlight, and adults do not want to live in places where they constantly have to fight for life. They fly away in search of comfortable conditions.
The more birds and other natural enemies of mole crickets live near the garden, the higher the likelihood that you will be able to avoid their invasion.
It is believed that a constant source of sound can scare away crayfish that encroach on the harvest. To do this, rattles, bells and other mechanisms capable of producing sharp loud sounds are hung.
As a preventative measure, sand sprinkled with kerosene is used. It is laid out in dug grooves around the beds and repels with the pungent smell of cabbage mushrooms.

Prevention measures

Compliance with preventive measures helps out better than any means of control. This is precisely why experienced gardeners have no or very few mole crickets on their site.

The rules are simple:

Plant marigolds, cloves, and calendula around the perimeter of the site, as well as along the beds and paths - mole crickets do not like the smell of these plants and leave.
Sift purchased soil and manure to avoid introducing larvae and adults into the garden.
Remove weeds in a timely manner and do not allow fallen leaves to accumulate on the site.
Mow the grass around the area: the more there is, the higher the chances of mole crickets appearing.
It is better to burn plant residues that have lain in one place for a long time or put them in a good composter.

Fighting mole crickets is always difficult. Sometimes it takes more than one year, and many gardeners give up. You can't despair.

Using traps, bait and poisons, in 2-3 years you can almost completely destroy mole cricket colonies in your summer cottage and live peacefully. The main thing is not to forget about preventive measures.