Anthonomus Rubi

Anthonomus Rubi 

a strawberry weevil of the family Curculionidae; a harmful pest to raspberry and strawberry plants. The body is 2.5-3 mm long, black or brownish, and densely covered with thin light hairs. The Anthonomus rubi is found in Europe, Asia, and North Africa. In the USSR it is distributed in the European USSR and Siberia. The insect damages the buds of raspberries, common strawberries, and hautbois strawberries; it can also infest dog rose and water avens. A loss of only 1 percent of the buds reduces the harvest by 0.5-2.5 percent. Early varieties of the pine strawberry, which have open inflorescences, are most severely damaged.

Control measures against this strawberry weevil include isolating new plants from old ones (by a distance of 500 m), weeding, destroying dry leaves and refuse, and treating infested areas with insecticides. It is important to apply chemicals only in the morning so as not to kill beneficial ground beetles that destroy the strawberry weevil (an adult ground beetle can eat 20 straw-berry weevils daily).