Cucumber beetles—spotted and striped—eat quite a lot of crops, no longer merely cucumbers.
Cucumbers, corn, lima and snap beans, melons, peas, pumpkins, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peanuts, eggplant, tomatoes, summer season and winter squash—cucumber beetles feed on more than 280 vegetation. They feed on leaves and crops and tunnel into fruit; early inside the season they eat more youthful seedlings. The larval degree of the cucumber beetle is referred to as the corn rootworm and feeds on the roots of corn.
Cucumber beetles are yellow, the scale of ladybugs, on the other hand pointier in front. The cucumber beetle is of the genus Diabrotica; there are 338 species world, seven in North The us.
The spotted cucumber beetle is largely the commonest. It is ¼ inch long, greenish yellow with a small black head and twelve black spots on its once more. The striped cucumber beetle is the same dimension pale yellow to orange with a black head and three black stripes down its once more.
Cucumber beetles lay yellow-orange eggs inside the soil at the base of vegetation. In mid-summer white larvae about ½ inch long (with a brown head and brown spot on the ultimate section of the body) feed on roots and in a while weakens host vegetation. Adults chew leaves and crops; an adult cucumber beetle will eat the tassels, leaves, and silks of corn vegetation. Feeding adults can transmit bacterial wilt and cucumber mosaic virus to vegetable crops.
There are two to 4 generations of cucumber beetles each and every three hundred and sixty five days; adults overwinter in garden debris and emerge in spring when temperatures achieve 65°F.
Cucumber beetles can also be controlled by way of a lot of methods:
• Keep the garden clean. Remove plant debris from the garden each and every three hundred and sixty five days; cucumber beetles overwinter in plant materials left inside the garden. Cultivate the garden in fall and early spring; this may occasionally disclose overwintering beetles to killing frost and freezing local weather.
• Timed planting and trap crops. Plant crops late; cucumber beetles emerge in spring when temperatures cheap 65°F; if host crops aren’t inside the garden, cucumber beetles will cross in other places to feed. Any other is to plant a trap crop of host vegetation that may attract beetles and their larvae; the ones crops can also be sprayed to kill off beetle infestations and new crops for harvest can then be planted.
• Row covers. Keep seedlings lined with row covers—horticultural subject matter or cheesecloth–to exclude beetles from flying in and laying eggs. Once vegetation begin to flower remove row covers to allow pollinating insects to reach crops.
• Sticky traps. Cucumber beetles have an interest within the color yellow. Place yellow sticky traps around the garden to catch adult beetles. You are able to paint a sheet of cardboard yellow and cover it with an adhesive paying homage to Tanglefoot to make your individual traps, or you can gain sticky traps at a garden center.
• Cucumber traps. Cucumber peelings and the rinds of cantaloupes contain cucurbitacin, a chemical that attracts cucumber beetles. Place peelings or rinds around the garden and coat them with insecticidal rotenone dust or spray. Check the traps daily. Squash blossoms moreover attract beetles. Check blossoms for beetles in late evening time to handpick and crush beetles.
• Handpicking. Deciding on beetles off of crops by way of hand daily will an ideal deal scale back adult beetle hurt. Hang open a plastic bag and gives plant foliage a gradual shake (beetles take shelter inside the color of foliage); beetles will tumble off vegetation and into the bag. Place the bag in a freezer until the beetles are useless or set the bag inside the sun and make allowance them to organize dinner.
• Nematodes. Heterorhabditis nematodes attack cucumber beetle larvae. Nematodes are available commercially and can also be added to the soil at planting time. Nematodes (microscopic worm-like creatures) burrow beneath the basis zone in time so a few techniques of nematodes could also be crucial.
• Toads. Toads will eat cucumber beetles (and earwigs and cutworms among other pests)—give toads water and dark, damp spots to shelter for your garden.
• Deterrent vegetation. Nasturtiums deter cucumber beetles and bean beetles. Plant nasturtiums on the border or probably the most crops you need to protect.
• Pyrethrins. Use a pyrethrum-based pesticide for serious infestation—as a last resort. Pyrethrum comes from a plant, Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium. There are a variety of pyrethrum-based pesticides. Those containing pyrethrum are made using parts of the plant itself and are least toxic. Those categorized pyrethrin are made from the toxic chemical substances extracted from the plant. Pyrethrum-based pesticides are fatal to every pest insects and really useful insects. Objective best areas where the beetle infestation is most important. Use the ones pesticides inside the evening time when cucumber beetles have settled on vegetation and really useful insects are least vigorous; pyrethrum dissipates in short, a lot of the toxicity can be lengthy long past by way of morning.
Pyrethroids are synthetic compounds similar to pyrethrin on the other hand much more potent and regularly mixed with other toxins. As well as they may be able to be applied as a last resort against cucumber beetles.
