Cathy,

It certainly is the year of the bug. I am seeing oodles of bugs of many kinds, but not really seeing damage to plants at a level yet that bothers me. I haven't seen any aphids yet though. There's plenty of young hoppers and a gazillion June bugs.

Being in a very rural area with tons of native pasture, I battle grasshoppers every year. I've used Semaspore since the 1990s and feel it is pretty effective in the April-May time frame when they are in the younger instars. However, those of us who battle large numbers of hoppers need something more, especially when their numbers drastically escalate in mid-summer.

Last year, after having massive hopper issues in 2010, I used EcoBran, which I purchased from Planet Natural. It is a wheat bran product laced with 2% Sevin. Because it is in that form, it is only ingested by insects with chewing mouthparts. It was the first time I've used Sevin since moving here in 1999 and it was not an easy decision to make, but I was determined I wasn't going to have plants stripped down to bare stems by the grasshoppers again.

I try to garden as organically as possible and never dreamed I'd ever buy and use a Sevin product, but my free-range poultry couldn't keep up with the vast numbers of hoppers, and nothing else I'd tried had worked. I also never dreamed the source of my EcoBran would be Planet Natural, which normally only carries organic type products. I think the fact that they carry EcoBran emphasizes that Semaspore and similar products alone are not enough in a bad hopper year and even growers who prefer organics need more than the current organic solutions to the grasshopper problem.

So, if you are not Certified Organic or working towards that certification, and if the grasshoppers are a big issue for you, you might find EcoBran helpful. I didn't have to use it a lot. I think I put it out twice, and only in the most heavily infested areas, and that was all it took. I won't say all the grasshoppers went away, but their numbers dropped tremendously.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: EcoBran at Planet Natural

Thanks Dawn
Last yr the grasshoppers even ate the bark off the new trees I put in the ground. I have ordered from planet natural before so I will check that out. I have looked at grasshopper bait recipes, they seem to all contain sevin, oat bran & molasses I think. I only hesitate since the dogs & birds would have access to any place I put grasshopper bait. Sounds like the stuff from planter natural is safer than the DIY recipe.

I am surprised you haven't seen any aphids. I began battling as soon as we had the first big rain, they took over my hoop house & I went to town with DE & sprayed garlic oil all over the place. The smell was awful, but I think it helped. Before I treated the area they ate 3 trays of eggplants I started! I think I have 4 sad looking eggplants left. Not going to stress over the eggplants though. I was only planting several varieties to play with since they actually thrived in the drought last yr.

i just noticed this morning my broccoli looks like swiss cheese. I found a ton of little green caterpillars, pretty sure they are cabbage butterfly. I picked off as many as I could find. I have neem oil for my citrus would this help. I only have 3 plants so I hope I can save them and get something to eat.

Mike

Cathy,

You're welcome.

I had a year like that in about 2003. The hoppers ate bark off the young fruit trees, ate fruit off more mature trees and left the pits hanging on the nearly naked trees, ate holes in the fiberglass window screens and chewed on the cotton rag rugs on the wraparound porch and the cotton pillows on the porch swing. I was just beside myself! I did use the old remedy of molasses mixed in water in half-filled quart canning jars and it caught a few grasshoppers but as a percentage of what we had, the amount that drowned in those jars was miniscule. My poor plants were just devoured and my nerves were shot.

I believe the only time I have much of an issue with aphids is if I have put too much nitrogen into a given area of the garden. They seem more attracted to plants recently fed nitrogen so I almost go overboard in the other direction. It also is possible I have them and that the beneficial insects get them before I notice them.

Mike, I believe neem oil sprayed on the leaves will work since it is an antifeedant. Be sure to spray the undersides of the leaves. I did that a couple of weeks ago when the first imported cabbage worms showed up and haven't seen any since, although I still have the cabbage white moths flying around. I think it helps a lot if you can catch them and knock back their population as soon as you notice it.

Y'all, I think the only real damage I've seen on plants so far is from flea beetles, and a few nasturtiums have had leaf miners. For all the bugs I'm seeing, the damage is pretty rare. It is early yet, and that could change in a heartbeat of course.

One odd thing I've noticed is that the cutworms are not retreating under ground in the mornings. Maybe the ground is too warm for them? Or, possibly too wet since it has rained a lot here this year. They are curling up and lying on top of the ground in the shade of the carrot foliage. So, now I check the shady spot under the carrot foliage every morning and smash cutworms. Oddly, they don't seem to be damaging plants, but clearly they are right there, napping in the garden.

Dawn

I'm having a bang up time. 25 endive plants growing well with big beautiful tender leaves and nice holes all throughout. Aphids or whatever. I find scores of tiny insects that look similar to gnats clinging to the plants and leaving eggs on the underside of leaves. If I were not picking these off I would have no plants left. I'm not worried about the endive. Well, not really worried about anything but the tomatoes and eggplants as I'm testing out the soil in the planters and know it's going to be ugly this year. I let all 35 broccoli plants go. The rain soaked them and then baked them into concrete and the leaves are swiss cheese, too. If it's not cabbage fly, thrips (or whatever) it's those darn pill bugs.

Do crickets eat these parasites? I'm beginning to see crickets in the endive garden.

We had to do much ecological damage when we removed the English ivy climbing the side of the house and also the temporary removal of honeysuckle for a new fence line. All the white clover burned up in the yard under last year's heat dismissing the bee's early food source. The English Ivy was full of wasp nests.

The other day husband found wasps roaming around the potted veggies ready to attack them. I told him what they were up to. leave 'em be! But my "yarden" is an awful mess. The aged compost is overrun by pill bugs that go right in the garden area. I'm attempting to just let it be so it can balance itself out. More and more it looks that the container gardens need to be kept all season to get anything decent.

I'm glad to see South Oklahoma getting some moisture but sadden that they're being pummelled.

bon

I am over the top mad & about to go get some heavy insectiside! went out tonight & 100 ft row that had ground cherries & purple artichokes GONE!!!! Plus I had about 20- 3 wk old melon seedlings, only one is left. I did find 7 or 8 damaged artichoke & ground cherry plants left, so I placed a ziploc bag over the plant & took it up roots & all. My ground Cherries were starting to bloom the artichokes were big & so pretty! I still have more plants, but I put the biggest nicest ones out. I only have a couple of purple artichokes left, but lots of green ones. The green ones seem to grow much slower though.

Inside the bag I see aphids, cucumber bettles & tiny black flies. The flies were visably covering every plant that was left. the bettles & aphids I couldn't see until after I examined the bag. The flies look like common house flies, but skinnier.

All of the bugs & damaged plants were planted in white plastic mulch. I havent found any major damage to the tomatoes in black mulch. I am going to call the dept of ag tomorrow & see if they have had more issues with the white mulch. So frustrated right now, I am still partially in shock I think.

Bon, We had a good day here. Only 4/10s of an inch of rain fell so since the top couple of inches of garden soil were almost dry anyway, that 4/10s isn't too much of a setback. After watching all those Dallas-Fort Worth storms roar thru, I feel fortunate that rain was all we had here. Our sky got really,really dark around 2 p.m. or so but that storm passed right to our west and was headed north and then hit Ardmore in Carter County. They had heavy rainfall, a little temporary high water, a few power problems and hail. I'm glad that missed us and equally sorry that it hit them.

I feel like Goldilocks with rainfall---either it is too much or too little but never is just right.

With pill bugs or sow bugs, the solution (and it is an organic one) is Slug-Go Plus. Because I mulch very heavily I have had enormous problems with pill bugs and sow bugs occupying that mulch and the Slug-Go Plus put an end to all that. I sprinkle it around the plants a couple of times a month in March and April and generally don't need to use it after that.

Cathy,

I am so sorry to hear about all the damage to your plants. It is mind-boggling that the pests are hitting your plants so hard so early in the season.

When you say gone do you mean completely gone as in nothing left at all or do you mean just all chewed up?

I don't think I have seen little black flies like that on plants before. The presence of the aphids bothers me because the white mulch is supposed to repel aphids or at least some aphids, I think. I haven't heard about white mulch attracting insects, though I know that yellow mulch can and does attract some bugs. I have noticed, though, that the silver aluminet shadecloth on my hoophouse-style greenhouse does seem to be really popular with June bugs and moths. They all perch on it at night, likely attracted by the nearby security light on the power pole. They aren't on it in the daytime hours though.

The only connection I can make with the plants on the white mulch and the pests is that white mulch reflects light so maybe those plants were cooler and more comfortable for visiting pests.

When I grew artichokes, I don't remember anything much bothering them. Something chewed on the leaves a little in early spring, but not for long. I never even saw what it was.

Now, cucumber beetles send a chill down my spine. They are everywhere here and if there is anything that preys upon them, I've never seen it.

Good luck getting answers and I hope the ag folks can provide you with some info that will help you fight and defeat whatever is getting on your plants. Please let us know what they diagnose and recommend.

Dawn

By gone I mean the a can see some stems, but honestly cant even see where the melons were! DH thought it was a deer or something. We have the garden fenced, and if deer or any other large animal came in the plastic would show the prints. The only surviving plants in the white plastic have many missing leaves (3 or 4 artichokes) and chewed up leaves (4 or 5 ground cherries). I didn't notice holes in the artichoke leaves, but those leaves are thick. I did find part of ground cherry plants that had been chewed off the stems. I am thankful my tomato plants are unharmed but can't imagine how these plants have been in the ground 3 days & are complelty devoured! Around us is nothing but cowpasture for hundreds of acres. So I am attracting all the pest to my place I guess.
(the melons were not in the white plastic, but I had placed one at the end of each row where the drip tape hangs out of the plastic). I will definately check my tomatoes as soon as the sun is up. I was certain the storms would wash the aphids away. We got LOTS of hard rain here. But tiny green aphids were crawling all around.

In my garden, that level of damage can come from the pill bugs or sow bugs that live in my mulch. I don't know if you have those there. Is the lower part of the fence rabbit proof? Do you have voles?

I do kind of think the surrounding cow pastures may be the main issue. I can relate because we have a neighborhood just like that. I have a small garden called the Peter Rabbit Garden that we built for the daughter of our son's girlfriend (now his ex-wife) several years ago and it is directly adjacent to the cow pasture south of us. It has horrible pest issues every year, and it has them very early in the season. Our regular garden is about 30' from that pasture fence line and has much fewer pest issues and doesn't have significant pest problems until much later in the season.

If the insects are coming to your land from the cow pastures, that's going to be a hard problem to correct.

You can knock the aphids off the plants with a sharp stream of water from the hose, but it is a lot of work.

I am almost afraid to say this, but silver mulch reputedly repels aphids. I have not used it myself though so cannot vouch for that.

Dawn

Well it seems I am the first to call in with my bug problem. This morning all the tomatoes on black plastic are fine. White plastic I found about a dz cut worms, that I took to my brooder of baby chicks. The chicks enjoyed the worms very much.
The best guess is the white plastic is cooler. In the past black plastic was what the majority of local growers used, but with last yrs extreme heat more people are leanig towards white. Most use all the same color plastic, but I did 100 ft rows of white & 225 ft rows of black, an an acre plot.
My plan of attack is to sprinkle pyrethrins on the white plastic tonight, might even go ahead & sprinkle on the tomatoes as well. I am thinking once it is 100+ outside I can plant in the white plastic without any pest issues different from the black plastic.

We have ants in our raised beds. We've seen some pretty severe damage but I'm not sure if it's ants or pill bugs. Any organic solutions to the ants, I'm ordering some slug go plus today for the pill bugs! Also my mother had good luck with diatomaceous earth to deter grasshoppers last year. I'm thinking I'm going to have an aggressive, integrated approach to bugs this year: diatom, row covers, og pesticides, plus my bug smashing mitts! Otherwise my DH might follow through on his threats to sevin dust everything.

One shovelful of dirt from my compost bin must contain one thousand pill bugs! I found three tomato horn worms today right where I was planting my tomato plants. Huge beautiful white butterflies fly around. Mealybugs EVERYWHERE. I hope those buggers are going to turn into the good kinds (bright orange). I must pick these gnat-like insects off my tomato plants every 2 days. Mosquitos are starting to arrive and they're BIG. I believe I found a squash bug in my squash seedling in its little starting pot.

Yep. Year of the bug?

I just finished doing some research on the worms I dug up today. They're brown and are either parsley worms or a type of horn worm. These are also the types I picked off my endives the other morning. There was at least one worm per plant and there are about 25 endive plants. Serious infestation. Ick

Those mealybugs (I meant to type mealworms) are all wire worms. Likely the click beetle.

I'm going to have a serious bug problem next year!

bon

Cathy, I hate to think that the white plastic caused it, but it seems somewhat logical. I hope you're able to get the bug issues under control.

Are you growing for market this year? If so, I surely do understand your frustration with the pests as your investment in seeds and plants is much higher than that of us home gardeners.

grn grl, I've never really seen ants damage plants but they will farm the aphids the way we people farm cows. I don't do anything for regular ants because they have a place in the ecosystem of the garden too, but for fire ants, which we have here in great abundance, I use an organic fire ant killer called Concern, which has Spinosad (made from a fermented bacteria) in it as its active ingredient. I assume Spinosad would work on all ants if they are a problem for you in your garden.

Sometimes I have red harvester ants make a pathway right by my water faucet and then they will climb on me and bite me when I am there hooking up the hose to the faucet or whatever. To deter them, I mix a little of Dr. Bronner's liquid peppermint soap (also organic) with water and spray the ground. I believe it messes up their navigation system and causes them to make a new path elsewhere. It might chase ants out of the garden, but be sure to get the soap on the ground and not on plants. Soap at too high of a concentration can burn plant foliage.

Diatomaceous earth does nothing for my grasshoppers, but I am in a rural area where they come by the hundreds in big hordes once they start traveling around. It is possible it is working on them some, but with that many, I might not be noticing the ones that aren't there, if you know what I mean. One year I sprinkled plain all-purpose flour on the tomato plants and it is supposed to deter the hoppers by gumming up their mouthparts. It did seem to work, but I hated how it made the tomato plants look. I used to use a lot of DE for ground-crawling pests. I still use it in the dog yard for flea control.

Bon, I have wireworms in my garden all the time and just don't worry about them. You're always going to have them unless you find a way to poison the soil enough to get rid of them, and who wants to grow food in poisoned soil?

I bet there's a million bugs in my garden, both good and bad, and I just live with it. If there is something doing visual damage to a plant, like for example, Colorado potato beetles munching on plants, I'll do what I can to remove them without resorting to broad-spectrum pesticides. Otherwise, we all peacefully co-exist together.

One thing to understand about bugs is that the good ones will control the bad ones for the most part if you let them. I never spray broad spectrum pesticides and my farmer friends who do spray always have very severe pest damage. I have very little. Why? Their pesticides kill off the good bugs too and good bugs rebound more slowly. It is the Volterra Principle at work.

A couple of days ago I saw the very first earwig I've ever seen in my whole life and I've been gardening my entire life. I didn't even know what it was and had to research online to figure it out. Well, I suspected it might be an earwig but had to look at photos online to verify. Where was that earwig? It was stuck in a spider web that a spider had built inside a tomato cage. That's nature at work for you--the carnivores (good bugs) taking care of the herbivores (bad bugs). No matter how many bugs you have in the garden, it will reach a balance and the good ones will keep the bad ones under control. They won't make them all go away but they will keep their numbers lower. Actually, if your garden is not full of bugs then something is really wrong. Insects always have existed and always will. I do not consider insects in the garden to be a problem in and of itself. They're only a problem if they are doing enough damage (like what Cathy mentioned in her original post on this thread) to kill or severely set back plants. Most of the bugs I see just do not do that kind of damage, but then, I have been allowing the ecosystem to function naturally for 14 years now with little intervention from me, so I have a great balance of good bugs and bad bugs. It took a while to get it to this state.

Dawn

I was reading transcript this morning, it is not just year of bug, but it will also be a "year of diseases" due to high humidity, warm temp and more cloudy days will create congenial condition for the microbial spores to germinate and spread faster... what are the precautionary measures you are considering in such years? -Chandra

Aphids showed up here in force this week. My Rose of Sharon are covered in them. Luckily, they seem to prefer the Rose of Sharon to my gardens as there is not a single lady bug in sight. Lots of ants after the honeydew.

We have plenty of lady bird beetles all over the garden. I don't know what made them appear so many, they are also very healthy and slightly larger than regular size. I still need to figured out what is attracting them. We have plenty of blooms of the fall planted cilantro, broccoli, ornamental cabbage, chives, onions, etc. are they attracting them? One thing for sure, I not used any chemicals in the garden in the last two years. -Chandra

Chandra,

In wet humid years I try to space the plants a bit further apart so they get better air flow. This year I planted my hollyhocks on the north side of the garden instead of the south side. I'll put my sunflowers there too. Since my spring and summer winds are predominantly out of the south, I didn't want anything too tall on the south side that would slow down air movement into the garden.

When I do water, I take great care to keep water off the foliage. It will be a hard enough year on them without us humans putting more moisture on their leaves. I really haven't had to water this year---only watering in seedlings with a watering can when transplanted, and watering newly planted seeds the same way. We've had plenty of rain.

I keep GreenCure fungicide and powdered sulphur handy and ready for use as needed. I haven't needed any yet. I also have neem which is not only a great antifeedant for pests but also a good fungicide.

I mulch more heavily than usual to prevent soil-borne diseases from splashing up onto the foliage of plants. That is always important with tomatoes but is even more important for all plants this year.

Noting the trend towards heavier rainfall since last fall, I amended as many beds as I could with more compost than usual since healthy plants grown in healthy soil can withstand both disease and pests better.

I have not yet made the decision about whether to spray my tomato and pepper plants regularly with Daconil to prevent fungal disease from setting in. I know that I should do it, but even after deciding in some previous years that I would spray with it and even after going to the store and buying it, I still couldn't bring myself to use it. This may be the year that I do break down and use it. The garden is off to a great start and I sure do not want diseases to ruin that. For Daconil to be most effective, the plants should be sprayed the minute they go into the ground, but for me that ship has sailed since my plants went into the ground weeks ago. Still, starting a spray program now still would prevent most if not all disease.

Using a chemical fungicide would not be the worst thing ever. I am adamantly opposed to using chemical pesticides except as a last resort (the EcoBran I used last year for grasshoppers was the first synthetic pesticide I've used since moving here), but the use of chemical herbicides (carefully targeted) and chemical fungicides does not bother me as much.

I also planted more hybrids of all kinds this year since hybrid vigor often gives plants a better chance to survive pests and diseases. It isn't that I've given up heirlooms. I never will. However, I have a more equal mix of heirlooms and hybrids than in previous years.

Got any other ideas, anybody?

Dawn

I am thankful I have yet to see damage to anything on my black plastic mulch (outside of wind damage). The black plastic already has tomatoes green beans & different squash. Seems white plastic mulch is the issue that is attracting pest. Hate that I already put hundreds of aspargus into the white mulch. I will do my best to treat it & hope for the best.
In my hoop house I have basil that is showing signs of the leaves being nibbled. Silly bugs must not know basil is suppose to keep bugs away. Been trying to make sure the pest were under control before putting anything else in the ground.
Fingers crossed the black mulch continues to deter many pest.

Cathy, Do you have anything at all that you could put over the white mulch? I know you probably have such a lot of that white plastic mulch that it would take a lot of any material to cover it.

Here's a pest bug alert for you: blister beetles are in my yard, though I haven't yet seen them in the actual garden itself. The ones I saw were the black blister beetles.

So, counting the recently spotted spider mites and adding in yesterday's sighting of two blister beetles, I already have my worst summer pests (except for huge numbers of grasshoppers and squash vine borers) here at our place in early April. I feel a huge pest-related migraine headache beginning to form inside my head. Oh wait, I haven't seen stink bugs or leaf-footed bugs yet, but I am sure I'll see some any day now. It just seems like that kind of year.

I am afraid the winter was so warm and the spring warm-up so early that many insects came out of hibernation/dormancy early or hatched early or whatever. Exceptionally early.

We also have moths in huge, huge quantities like I've never seen in my life. That means caterpillar damage is/will be rampant. Like you, I have nibbled foliage on plants that usually are not bothered by much of anything, including basil just like you've seen there.

We normally don't have Japanese beetles this far south in the large quantities that many people in NE OK have them. I saw one yesterday....just one....and it kicked off my "worry" gene and made me wonder if this will be the year the JBs find us down here.

Dawn

here is info about the Live video science seminar on "Managing pests and disease under climate change: What do we need to learn?"

On 18 April the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) will live stream a video science seminar on managing pests and disease in a changing climate. The presenter will be Professor Karen Garrett from the Department of Plant Pathology, Kansas State University. The seminar will include a question and answer session after the initial presentation where online viewers can participate via chat.

Read more about the science seminar in below link;
-Chandra

Here is a link that might be useful: Managing pests and disease under climate change

I found a cucumber beetle on my peas yesterday. Not a comforting sight considering I just planted some cukes and summer squash. I'm also battling cutworms in the lettuce and green beans. I haven't seen an aphid in weeks, though, so the ladybugs must be doing their jobs!

Chandra, Thanks for the link.

Heather, I don't know how abundant they are in your area, but here where we're surrounded by thousands of acres of mostly ranchland but still a little farmland, we have cucumber beetles in heavy numbers from April through October. I've never had much luck controlling them. I usually just plant 'County Fair' cucumber because it is more resistant to the diseases they spread. I should say that it is my go-to that will survive the diseases they spread. I do plant other varieties too, but many years those others don't survive half as long as County Fair does.

Cucumber beetles will bother just about everything I plant, so I just try to ignore them.

I am glad your lady bugs are doing their job on the aphids. Mine always do. It amazes me how the aphid population will just explode one day and then, if you're patient and wait a few days, the lady bugs show up and take care of them. It is just as regular as clockwork. I love, love, love the lady bugs and cannot imagine gardening successfully without them.

We did not have a good natural population of lady bugs here when we moved here, so I bought and released some once or twice each of our first couple of years here and we've had a nice population ever since.

Dawn

Ignoring Cucumber Beetles is good info to know, Dawn. The last couple of years I have had them in large numbers in my garden. Mostly late summer. But, whenever I reach down to prune a plant, there is a cloud of them that scramble for another foothold nearby. What are they attracted to - flowers, foliage?

Susan

Ignoring them is simply the least stressful way to deal with them. Even if there was a product that would control them in my garden and even if I used it, about a million would would migrate in from the "wild" land on all 4 sides of us. So, what's the point? Some people spray with pyrethrins but I do not use that kind of pesticide because it can harm felines, and we love our kitty cats. (Our domestic pet cats, not the wild cats like bobcats.) I don't spray Sevin because it would harm my beneficials, so ignoring them is about the only option I have.

As far as I can tell, Spotted Cucumber beetles will eat many plants, not just veggie plants but flowers as well. I see them all over our property on virtually any and every plant we have. Their larvae will eat the roots of many garden vegetables, especially corn. Striped Cucumber Beetles seem to mostly restrict themselves to any and every kind of cucurbit family member.

I try to cover up my young cucumber plants with one of the insect-weight floating row covers that allows high light transmission until they start to flower. Then I uncover them so the bees can pollinate them naturally. Since they are large and well-established before the cucumber beetles hit them, they tend to tolerate the damage fairly well.

It is not necessarily the damage from the cucumber beetle feeding itself that harms the plants. It is that they transmit the virus that causes Bacterial Wilt, so when they feed on the plants, they infect them with the wilt and the wilt kills the plants.

About 4 years out of 5, the cucumber beetles spread the wilt to my cucumber plants and I lose them. Some years they spred it to the cantaloupe and muskmelons as well.

I have had some success with planting squash and gourds as trap plants away from the garden and spraying those plants with neem or something when they are infested with cuke beetles. However, since all my areas outside the garden are open to wildlife, often the wildlife eat the trap plants which, of course, foils my plans.