Vegetable Leafminer: Appearance, Territory, Damage and Life Cycle

Latin Name: Liriomyza Sativae

Appearances: Vegetable leafminers are lustrous yellow-brown insects with black patterns as adults. Beet, spinach, and chard, as well as the common weed lambsquarter, are all hosts for the spinach leafminer. Adult flies are around 14 inches long and have black bristles. Larvae are maggots that are pale green in color. Adult leaf miners have a similar appearance to house flies. They’re about a tenth of an inch long on average. In addition to being black or grey in color with yellow stripes and clear wings, they are also black or grey in color. Larvae resemble small worms or maggots, measuring about 13 inches long and tinted green or pale yellow.

Host Plants: Vegetable leafminers are lustrous yellow-brown insects with black patterns as adults. Beet, spinach, and chard, as well as the common weed lambsquarter, are all hosts for the spinach leafminer.

Territory: Distribution. North America, Central America, and the Caribbean, South America, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Australia are the continents of North, Central, and South America, respectively (Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula Area of Cape York).

Damage Caused: Foliage punctures generated by females during oviposition or feeding may result in a stippled look, however this damage is minor in comparison to larvae’s leaf mining activity. The irregular mine grows in breadth as the larva matures, from about 0.25 mm to about 1.5 mm, and is nearly identical in look and impact to Liriomyza trifolii mines. Larvae are frequently visible within the mine, where they destroy the mesophyll that connects the leaf surfaces.

Life Cycles and Habits: 9 to 12°C is thought to be the developmental threshold for eggs, larvae, and pupae. At warm temperatures (25 to 30°C), the egg and larval stages require a total development time of roughly seven to nine days. At these temperatures, pupal development takes another seven to nine days. At 15°C, both egg-larval and pupal development durations increase to around 25 days. The vegetable leaf miner develops from egg to adult stage in about 15 days at ideal temperatures (30°C). Egg: The white, elliptical eggs have a length of 0.23 mm and a width of 0.13 mm. In around three days, the eggs are implanted into plant tissue just beneath the leaf surface and hatch. Larva: There are three active instars, and larvae grow to around 2.25 mm in length. The larvae are practically colorless at first, then turn greenish, then yellowish as they age.