STINK BUGS. CRUSH! KILL! DESTROY!
STINK BUGS! CRUSHKILLDESTROY!
STINKBUGSCRUSHKILLDESTROY!
Posted on 05/22/2011 3:10:09 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
An insect with a voracious appetite, no domestic natural predators and a taste for everything from apples to lima beans has caused millions of dollars in crop damage and may just be getting started.
The brown marmorated stink bug, a three-quarter-inch invader native to Asia, is believed to have been brought first to the Allentown, Pa., area in 1998. The bug began appearing in mid-Atlantic orchards in 2003-04 and exploded in number last year.
This spring, stink bugs have been seen in 33 states, including every one east of the Mississippi River and as far west as California, Oregon and Washington.
"All that we do know for certain is that a tremendously large population went into overwintering in fall 2010. So, if they survived, there could be a very large population emerging in the spring," said Tracy Leskey, a research entomologist at the U.S. Agriculture Department's Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville W.Va.
Growers in the mid-Atlantic region have reported the worst problems, and the apple industry appears hit hardest, with $37 million in damage to growers in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, according to the U.S. Apple Association. That's about 18 percent of the Mid-Atlantic crop.
Mark Seetin, the association's director of regulatory and industry affairs, called it the worst threat to farmers he's see in his 40 years in agriculture.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Chickens.
These bugs move kinda slow in the morning, so I turn the chickens and ducks loose in the garden for a few hours and they take care of all they can find. My birds have all but eliminated my Japanese Beetle problem over the last 4 to 5 years as well. As a bonus our eggs have a higher protein content than most.
STINK BUGS. CRUSH! KILL! DESTROY!
STINK BUGS! CRUSHKILLDESTROY!
STINKBUGSCRUSHKILLDESTROY!
You and I wish the DNC were reduced by Diamotacious Earth applications. One has to wonder how they ever escaped the primordial ooze with this stuff raining down from above every second?
The cat got bad fleas which got into several areas, sprayed multiple times with that stuff I got for outside in combo with 4 months of Advantage on the cat. It worked but required several apps, hadn't had a prob w/fleas for years. Bayer Advanced Rose and Flower insect spray, prob shouldn't use in the house but couldn't afford an exterminator and had a bunch on hand.
Didn't know your were joking ;-).
Oh, they don't like chrysanthemums and four o'clocks will kill them if they eat those. I've got some yellow seed of those I need to plant. Seems they like yellow the most, but will go for things you'd least expect.
You could ask your father if it wouldn't be too much trouble. I've called the local ext office at least 3 times, sent me literature; some of them haven't kept up with developments as much as I have. The web has been more of a help for me.
My first acquaintance with those nasty aphids was detasseling corn as a teen; they infest the tassels. Ick. Ick. Ick. BTW there are dark aphids, too; all I've seen are the green ones. You can pick and brush them off but tedious. Believe it or not they will infest poppy plants, too.
People out east have been fighting these horrid bugs for a long time. There are years when they just endure it. All sorts of things they try. There was a lady in central IL who got the bugs so bad, they'd bounce off the house. She claimed to have gotten rid of them with water, dish soap, lemon juice and vinegar, but we never could find the correct concentration.
I picked all the buds off my roses during the season, another pain, they like the leaves, too, and getting in my birch and other trees, not much point in it.
Tornado sirens have been going off, lifting shopping carts in the air at Target. Hope my kids places are ok.
Neem oil and a few drops of liquid dish soap mixed up in water works well on mildew problems on plants.
Thanks, some try it on beetles, too. I’ll get some if the peroxide doesn’t work.
We live in the country so while I can deal with the local Japanese beetls, there’s no way to get all of them.
I put up the traps every year and the first year here caught a TON of them. Not so many in the following years.
The traps keep them away from the plants, otherwise, I wouldn’t do them.
I’ll deal with the stink bugs as I find them and will be stocking up on good DE, not the heat treated stuff I read about upthread.
I usually go half-n-half with water to make it stretch, but since it’s already diluted I imagine you could do it straight.
Pesticides are a pain to use, and they tend to kill more than you want. Our family never has had much, so the thing was to do maximize the yield most efficiently.
Monitor is a restricted use Category 1 pesticide. Word has it it’s parent was a nerve agent developed by the Nazi’s.We used it to kill green peach aphids on potatoes. Green peach aphids don’t survive east Idaho winters, but they get blown in from the Boise area every year. They carry a leafroll virus that cuts down yields in potatoes. Too much disease and you can’t sell your spuds for seed. Plus it causes a brown ring in the spud. Perhaps you have seen a potato chip with a brown ring? Bingo. It won’t hurt you. It just doesn’t make the chip as appealing, especially in a marketing sense.
Is the imidicloprid Marathon by chance? I’m not as familiar with it.
Pretty sure the only things he uses are Malathion and Sevin.
But, then again, he would stop at nothing to save his garden. :-)
I do see a few traps around. About a block away, somebody grows beautiul Carefree roses, put the trap right squat in the rose area lol.
But the odd thing is I inspected her roses for damage and didn't see any; this was about the time they die off; the adults don't live more than one season; one season a female will lay up to 60 eggs.
Oh did those traps get to stinking, had to change and tape the holes in the bags once a week, got hundreds. They'd poke their icky little heads through the holes pre-punched in the bags. They die a slow death in those, but I'm to the point I don't care.
It is more humane to put a few drops of dish soap in the water if you pick them off plants; they drown much faster, have timed them. In water they will swim and swim until exhausted, and some will climb up on each other and get away. I hate to catch them in strings, piling on to do the f word. Oh, and they prefer bright sunlight and worst in the HOTTEST weather, and lurk on rainy days so you get a break from the battle when it rains.
Yes, I get the brown stuff in chips. When I peel them, I cut it all out, another ick.
No imidicloprid is in a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids and totally different from malathion which is what I think you meant. I might try Sevin again since I still have it but not suit up as carefully; guy at the nursery says he's been spraying it for over 30 years.
The LAT article is still up, well worth the read for both gardeners and farmers.
Marathon is a trade name for an imidicloprid.
I don’t think you can get Monitor. You don’t want it. It is highly toxic.
Back when I had a place to garden I lived in the same town as my dad. I would have him come over and do any bug killing. Then I didn’t have to worry about my kids getting into those poisons.
Yes, kids and pets, one reason I don't like my lawn treated. Had to last year. Overkill. Made it worse. Family. Next time I'll do it myself more sparingly and a couple treatments, if necessary.
Have to watch my grandson and neighbor kids though. And if it's too toxic, I don't want any part of it. I think someone came along one side of my house and killed everything with stuff that lasts ten years. Saw the telltale brown crisping on the leaves, then all died. Five years ago, some things try to come back and just too weak. Ticks me off; they would almost have had to come on my property to do it.
Another thing local kids have done for vandalism, but this wasn't that. Sometimes I get so discouraged trying to make my yard look nice on a budget I wonder what's the use, and I can't do as hard work as I was doing past years, winter took its toll on my back and knees.
Last year and the year before they showed up as small clusters of brownish orange-ish eggs on the tops of my zucchini and my bird house goard leaves. I tore that section of leaf off and threw it in the trash.
I turned my garden twice this winter to expose as many wintering pests/larva as possible. I have not seen the little varmits yet this year but I look for them daily.
Thanks. I didn’t even know where on the plant to look for them. A lot of bugs like to hide on the undersides of the leaves or down by the base of the plant.
If these things show up on top, that’ll make it all the easier.
My garden is not huge which will be a help in controlling pests mechanically.
I would like to have turned my soil over a couple times in the winter to do the same thing as you, but once it started snowing in November, that was it for seeing the ground again until April.
Plus, they smell. They’re like a six-legged “pull my finger” gag.
My old truck had an infestation of them. If it was sitting in the sun with the windows up there would be at least a hundred, many dead but many still alive. That residual smell lingered. I would vacuum them out regularly. I discovered that they were primarily coming in through an inlet duct for the AC that was breached in the firewall. I used an ozone generator in it to remove the smell.
I have a car that sits in the garage all windows up and AC off that inevitably accumulates 3 or 4 in it within a week. I don’t know how they get in. Yes they are a pita.
Some claim that free-range chickens will eat the critters.
Most local zoning laws would not approve.
These things played havoc with my squash plants for years until I got some chickens and let them free range in the garden.
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