Parasites, the nightmare of farmers

Mealybugs, red spiders, aphids, white flies, and flea beetles are the worst enemies of our farmers! As you can see, it exists a variety of different parasites that attack entire plantations and can quickly become a nightmare for production. These parasites mainly attack the roots, stems or leaves of plants and can transmit them diseases. Some suck the sap of the plants and will favour the development of toxic fungi, others will “suffocate” the plant and make its leaves dry while some will rather make them mildew.

How to fight them without using insecticide? 

Promoting diversity

One of the first measures to be adopted in order to fight effectively against parasites is to favour the diversity of the cultivated plants. Plants can protect each other by attracting natural predators of parasites such as ladybugs or hedgehogs. In addition, promoting a diversity of plant species will help to deal with diseases. Since not all plants are susceptible to the same diseases, this is an extremely effective method. Furthermore, it can also be combined with crop rotation to keep the soil in good condition.

Use gentle and natural methods

In addition to these preventive strategies, there are also many natural recipes for pest control. In fact, insecticides are to be used only as a last resort and prevent obtaining the BIO label prohibiting the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

But even so, no one is safe from parasites! It even happened to one of our farmers who could not deliver our radishes last week… Indeed, not so good to have black radishes in the Benoo Boxes!