Leafminer

Hello people! As always, the first thing is to know the "enemy":

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Species: Phyllocnistis citrella.
Class: Insect.
Order: Diptera.
Family: Gracillariidae.

The miner fly is quite small, the length of which is located between 0.14 and 0.5 mm.
He lives inside the leaves and makes a series of galleries ending sheet completely.
Is capable of "mines" until inside the stems on new growth. Once the larva hatches, it will begin to undermine the sheet, or I could move and start their "galleries" in any other form.

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With a temperature of between 29 to 32 degrees, a time of 2 weeks (approximately) passes through the following stages:
- Egg: Approximately 1 mm., Transparent color, moving later to a creamy color and ovoid. Its approximate incubation is between 3 to 10 days. A female miner can
- Larva: Once hatched the egg, the larva exits. Yellowish, this does not have legs, and are helped to move with some movements performed with the chest. Its size is around 3 mm. The larvae pass through three larval stages of a total duration of about 8 to 10 days.
- Before pupa: Here the larva spins a "silken cocoon" yellowish.
- Pupa: The color is more brownish, appears its eyes and hooks at the top of his head which breaks the cocoon to get out.
- Adult: In this state, the leafminer adult is a butterfly of a size between 2 and 4 mm. It is platinum white color.

Once in the adult, the miner will lay her eggs on the underside as well in the face of the young, tender leaves, even the stalks.
Cycle has more or less lasting between 15 to 20 days, when there are suitable climatic conditions (temperature 25 ° C and a relative humidity between 40 and 60%). As you can see, the ideal setting is usually in marijuana crops.

WHAT CAUSES DAMAGE?
Leafminer larvae feed on leaf tissues, causing "gallery" within these.
It is easy to distinguish, you can see what the galleries grooves made for food:

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Because of this just destroying leaf, curling and blackening just cuticle. Leafminer action causes a loss of leaf mass, reducing the photosynthetic capacity of the plant, affected the force of it.

Still, it is a pest that affects less harvest, and it is easier to control.

PREVENTION
Surely you know neem oil and potassium soap. Well in this case it is also applied to prevent this pest.
To prevent, the following dosages are recommended:
- One liter of water.
- Half a teaspoon of potassium soap.
- One table spoon of neem oil.
You can use it once a week as a preventative.

Miners HAVE TOO LATE IN MY CULTURE
The truth is that ending this plague becomes not as difficult as it may be one of mildew, spider mites and whiteflies.
Look at the leaves, if they are few, you can even crush the miner in "galleries" with your fingers, and ready. If the blade is very damaged, remove it from the plant.
If the pest is quite advanced, you can use the following method home:
- The most widely used is a liter of water with 1 ml of hydrogen peroxide, and then spray the plants with it.
- Other grinding coffee is not unusual in water and boil until release caffeine was allowed to cool, strain, and sprayed on plants.

If your plants are not in bloom, and the plague has run riot in excess, can use market products such as Compo Perfecthion

But remember that these products are not at all recommended for the flowering phase for toxicity only growing.

Hope you considerate useful this info!
Have a nice day!:rastasmoke: