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I hate colorado potato beetles
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Posted by kygirl99 6 (My Page) on Sat, Jun 2, 07 at 19:29
| the colorado potato beetles are ruining my potatoes. I have sprayed them three times in the past week alone with a diluted Neem oil and yet they're still there, munching away on my plants. I'd say that about half of them die with each spraying of Neem, but new ones are constantly hatching (I thought Neem oil would kill the eggs but not sure since they are still hatching). Some of my potato plants have about 40 beetles on them.
here's my technique - I spray the potato plant all over, then shake the plant and the little beetles fall to the dirt. and I squirt them again. the first round, I sprayed and left them on the plant, but that doesn't kill them all and then they keep eating.
any suggestions? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: I hate colorado potato beetles
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| Pluck them off and put in a coffee can. Fill the can with lighter fluid, place at the end of driveway and light. My family used to grow potatoes and eggplant and aside from the commercial pesticides we used, they couldn't all be stopped (especially on the eggplant field), so we'd have to pluck them off in the most devastating times. This was growing up on our farm on Eastern Long Island. Since the potato business is vanishing from LI the last decade the number of Colorado Potato beetle have diminished. Since I moved to KY 10 years ago I have not seen one of these pests since. We once spent 8 hours plucking beetles off 300 or so eggplant plants. I know it not the most lucrative way to remove the pests, but it saved our crop more than once. |
RE: I hate colorado potato beetles
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| bencjedi - goodness, how devastasting to have your entire crop in danger from those pesky beetles! our five acres was once used for tobacco farming, so I wonder if that is why they are in the soil/area? so neem oil isn't an effective killer? heck. I answered that myself up above. guess I'll start plucking tonight when it cools off. |
RE: I hate colorado potato beetles
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| If you just have a few potatoes and not many bugs I'd manually remove the offenders. If you have several rows and more larvae then I'd spray or dust with Sevin. The beetles are there because you have food for them to eat. I don't recall ever seeing potato beetles on tobacco unless they just stopped to rest.... Janet |
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