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castorp

Experimenting with Trap Crops

castorp
11 years ago

I'm going to experiment with trap crops this spring/summer in the vegetable garden. Have any of you tried it? How did it work for you?

The basic idea is to plant things highly attractive to bad bugs to draw them away from the veggies.. For example, stink bugs love sunflowers and sorghum, and will choose them over tomatoes.

I became interested in this because I noticed that bugs/worms left my kale and collards in relative peace when I also planted turnip greens and mustard, which they seem to prefer.

I'm also considering planting some dill with the tomatoes to draw away the hornworms. I may even plant a yellow summer squash, which is highly attractive to pickle worms, between a trombocini and cukes--but this is more iffy.

What do you think?

Trap crops for stink bugs are showing some promise in UF experiments. See link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: trap crop experiments

Comments (15)

  • RetiredFlorida
    11 years ago

    Interesting article.

  • whgille
    11 years ago

    Bill, that will be very interesting....I am just the opposite, I don't want to put any plant in my garden that attracts bugs. My neighbors do that already and the community garden has a lot of bug problems from each other plantings.
    Last season I was almost bug free that I can remember, not even stinkbugs were a problem.
    I do plant flowers because I like them and for the pollinators..

    Silvia

  • tomncath
    11 years ago

    Theoretically interesting Bill, I'd think our grandfathers and other old-timers we would have come in contact with would have known about this if it worked well...keep us posted.

    Tom

  • whgille
    11 years ago

    I just remember something today, when I went to Monticello and took the garden tour of flowers and vegetables, I never saw so many bugs, they had everything in the book! they said they plant companion plantings for bugs like some herbs and flowers, but it was not working, especially with the stink bugs.

    I like the veggie garden layout

    And the flowers that were close to the house

    Silvia

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    I don't know about trap plants, but apparently beer, Landshark to be specific, is a good trap for houseflies. I was out in my chain yesterday, sipping a cold one when I noticed something in one of my beds needed adjusting. So I got up and went to adjust it. When I came back, there was a fly in my bottle. Bugger! I had to dump half the bottle out before the fly fell out as well... talk about alcohol abuse... About thirty minutes later the area where I had spilled the beer was carpeted with flies. Needless to say, I took the opportunity to thin out the population a bit.

    I plan on using this to my advantage later on. I'm going to try pouring a little beer near the areas where the anoles mostly frequent and see if I can't lure the flies and let the lizards do the thinning out for me.

  • castorp
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Ha, ha! Do I sense some skepticism?

    Thanks for the pic of Monticello, Silvia. I've always wanted to go there. It's so beautiful--even if it is full of bugs!

    The trouble with companion planting is a lot of it's based on folklore. Some of it's true, but a lot isn't, and some of it is actually creates problems. I've been trying to find actual tests, but even tested techniques aren't always reliable. Much of this seems to be in the experimental stage.

    Whatever happens, I'll let y'all know.

    Bill

  • tomncath
    11 years ago

    I plan on using this to my advantage later on. I'm going to try pouring a little beer near the areas where the anoles mostly frequent and see if I can't lure the flies and let the lizards do the thinning out for me.

    I have two suggestions:

    1) Use Red, White and Blue, no need to waste good beer!

    2) Please draw in the dang Cuban anoles, hopefully they'll drink the beer and die too, then we can save the native green anoles ;-)

    Much of this seems to be in the experimental stage.

    Bill, in science we call that anecdotal evidence ;-)

    Tom

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    Problem for me is that I don't have straight-up Cuban anoles. I mostly have the cross-bred Cuban/Brown anoles. There are some green and browns as well, but the hybrids are very dominant. I also have sand skinks and a few other skinks. There are also some Mediterranean Geckos, but they're a very small population and I haven't seen one since September or October.

  • jane__ny
    11 years ago

    When I lived in NY, I had a problem in one flower bed from slugs. I did the beer trick, pouring some in a small tuna can and putting them amoung the flowers. In the morning, the cans were filled with slugs. It was so disgusting to empty the cans.

    A few days later, we woke up to a lot of noise outside our window. There was a huge flock of crows all around the tuna cans, happily slurping up the slugs along with the beer. I swear, we had drunk crows!

    They loved those slugs with beer.
    Jane

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    I swear a bar I went to in Michigan served the exact same thing.... Beer and Chips my *****.

  • happy_fl_gardener; 9a, near DeLand
    11 years ago

    Silvia - I've been wanting to go to Monticello, either this year or next. What time during the growing season did you go? I'm guessing around July?

    Bill - Best of luck with your experiment. The data that you gather should be interesting.

    Christine

  • whgille
    11 years ago

    Christine, I went for the Heritage festival for 3 days. It is really worth the trip and to go to the lectures and tours that interest you. If you go around that time, you can plan everything while you are here, they have a lot of things to do and see. Food from the farms is also good. It was a little bit chilly around that time...

    They had the heirloom tomato sampler

    They invite different famous people every year, one of them was Allen Smith when I went, he is in the picture with one of the tour guides

    Silvia

  • whgille
    11 years ago

    I forgot the link.

    Here is a link that might be useful: heritage harvest festival

  • castorp
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Thanks, Christine. I'll let you all know what happens.

    Jane, I once tried the saucers of beer for slugs, but it was the raccoons who threw a party.

    Bill

  • gardeniadyl
    11 years ago

    I have almost no bad bugs in my garden. I also use no insecticides . I let nature take care of things. After all the birds and lizards need food too.

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