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They don’t only bring good luck, ladybugs are also very useful for getting rid of aphids naturally. For 40 years, the Jardin des Plantes in Caen has been distributing free larvae of these virtuous little beasts.
Forget your insecticides, the absolute weapon is ladybug larvae capable of decimating colonies of aphids. No need to go looking for ladybugs in your neighbour’s vegetable garden, the Jardin des Plantes in Caen (Calvados) already has everything you need. In each box given, there are about twenty ladybug eggs which will turn black in a few days and which will then be ready to join the garden.
1,500 aphids devoured per day
With only one of these boxes distributed, it is up to 1,500 aphids devoured per day, much more effective than an adult ladybug. “The larvae will actually eat aphids, whereas the adult ladybugs won’t necessarily eat them, so ultimately the larvae can’t move from where you put them, they don’t have wings”, explains Morgane Nay, apprentice in BTS Management and Protection of Nature. But they only live 20 to 30 days, gardeners will have to come and get other boxes to fight the pests.
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