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Slugs
are often the most damaging of all the garden pests, affecting a
wide variety of garden plants. As well as attacking the foliage,
most of these slugs also devour the roots of many plants. Slugs like
damp conditions and are much more common in wet years and in areas
of the garden that are humid. Slugs tend to hide away under rank
vegetation, wood or stones during the day and
emerge at night to feed.
The
rather variably coloured, brown to cream, Field Slug Deroceras
reticulatum is probably the most destructive of the
surface-dwelling slugs that predominantly attacks foliage but can
also damage seeds and vegetative planting material.
They make irregular
holes in the leaves, flowers and stems with the minute teeth that
cover their rasping tongue. This feeding soon results
in very unsightly
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In
addition to the Field Slug, several other species of slugs are common
in gardens; these are the round-backed slugs such as the garden slug, Anon
hortensis;
and keeled slugs, Milax
species, which tend to attack plant roots. All need mild damp
conditions in which to breed, and so they avoid dry areas. During
frosty or dry weather slugs bury themselves deep in the soil and
hibernate over winter. Most slugs have similar life cycles. Several
hundred eggs are laid annually in batches of ten to 50 most commonly
during spring or sometimes autumn by an hermaphrodite parent; these
are the result of cross fertilisation by another hermaphrodite in the
autumn or winter. Most of the translucent eggs are laid during the
spring, usually in damp soil or rotting plant debris well away from
cold and dry air. The eggs can hatch fairly quickly into miniature
replicas of the adults, but often this process is delayed until the
weather improves. As a result in some species such as the garden and
keeled slugs the complete cycle can take two years, but in the field
slug takes a year.
Impact/effects on chrysanthemums
Slugs will attack all green parts and flowers.
Controls
Amateur products.
Aluminium sulphate, sold as pellets 2 manufactures (Doff)
(Westland)
Metaldehyde sold as pellets various
manufacturers.
Metaldehyde sold as Slug Clear
Liquid
Ferric Phosphate (Organic) pellets
from Growing Success
Professional Product
Methiocarb sold as New Draza
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