Farmers Weekly Review

Curious and voracious chewers, Japanese beetles can skeletonize leaves quickly. However, they don’t show up until July.

Bugs. My favorite subject. The most successful life form on earth. Not bad for being so small. But this time of year, there is a lot of blame going around. And it is not right. Just because you were in the store when it was robbed, doesn’t make you the thief, right?
Such is the case of the insect blame game. So many times, I am told (not asked) that this bug or that bug “caused” something to happen. It is no surprise; most people see insects as negative. Something to be wiped out. Fortunately, though, due to the dire circumstances we find ourselves in, with loss of pollinators, smart folks like you are starting to wake up, and smell the aphids…Wait, that isn’t right.
Smell and taste the facts…like the delicious chocolate cake you had. Chocolate, yep, because of a pollinator. And with that cake, a nice cup of coffee—pollinator there too. Bugs are just good people. Except for those that are not. I just want you to be a good detective first. Be sure you apprehend and charge the right person, especially if you plan to spray/dust/smash the accused.
Here is a recent example, over the weekend I was told that a friend’s husband lost their whole squash crop to the evil, roly-polys. Wiped them out, she said. I asked what the symptoms were, and it was a devastating wilt that got the squash. They determined that roly polys were to blame, as they found them when he pulled out the dying squash out. Of course, I said. Roly polys are decomposers. They are the hearse, not the artillery, they came as a result of another problem.
Why does this matter? He used every spray to ‘kill them all.’ Poor little decomposers. The real villain here is the squash bug or the cucumber beetle. They are the Typhoid Mary of the squash family. These chewing pests carry bacterial wilt in their mouths and infect the vines causing systemic failure of the vascular system. But how would you know?
First, remember, we are here for you. Email me at [email protected] or call our office at 815 727 9296. If we don’t know, we have a whole University chock full of experts who we can ask.
But you can do some of your own detective work if you like. Be observant. Look for anything out of the ordinary. Unless you have a beaver in your yard, most garden problems aren’t instantaneous and happen overnight. There are clues.
Our pest insects have different types of mouthparts, mostly vampires or chewers. The vampires have piercing/sucking mouthparts. Aphids for example. They are always on the newest foliage to start (don’t you like fresh lettuce too?). They are very small but the damage they do can shrivel and wither that fresh foliage.
Then there are the chewers, they are more obvious. I don’t think you will miss a leaf that was fine yesterday but today looks like grandma’s lace doilies. Japanese beetles are curious, voracious chewers. They can skeletonize leaves quickly, but for some reason, leave the veins. Maybe they are thinking it is dental floss.
Good news here, although many gardeners curse Japanese beetles, they don’t show up until July. So, our plants have had the opportunity to take in the nutrition they need for next year (if they are perennials, shrubs, and trees.) So, you can choose to treat them or not.
Some people delight in the daily ritual of having coffee, breakfast, then taking a stroll in the garden with a can of soapy water, and a stick, tapping off the beetles into their final swim. You can use pesticides, but some require repeat application as Japanese beetles like to extend their stay.
The other option is to do nothing. For me, usually, that is the preferred option. But there are some chewers, particularly in the vegetable garden, where I draw the line. Caterpillars are big time chewers. Like hungry teenagers ravaging the fridge, I can lose an entire tomato in a day from a hot dog sized tomato hornworm. Or do you grow members of the cabbage family?
Nothing like going out to harvest that bowling ball sized cabbage, all ready to turn into grandma’s sauerkraut. And I find a hole-y cue ball. Drats…cabbage worms.
For caterpillars, true caterpillars (there are some bugs whose teenage physique resembles caterpillars but are the larvae of other bugs, called sawflies), there are three options to rid your vegetable patch of these chewing pests. For tomato hornworms, I always say, even though you can look up pesticides to try; but in reality, we usually find them when they are already the size of a hot dog.
Unless you plan to use the can to actually crush them with it, they are too big for treatment. Why not just hand pick-n-squish? If they are covered with white elongated structures, (people often tell me they have eggs) leave them alone. Sing a little Circle of Life and walk away. Those are cocoons of a tiny parasitizing wasp that is eating them from the inside out.
For cabbage looper caterpillars and other caterpillars that are pests, you can use Dipel or Thuricide (Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki), a naturally occurring bacteria that only kills caterpillars (that you don’t want.) As with anything you apply to plants, read and follow all labelled instructions.