Organic Control Measures for Striped Cucumber Beetles
Delayed Planting - Growers can avoid the most significant damage by simply delaying the planting of summer cucurbits by a few weeks. If you’re not set on getting the first cucumbers or summer squash to market, let a neighbor’s crop take the brunt of the spring cucumber beetle migration. This tactic can also allow seedlings extra time to grow into vigorous, mature plants capable of withstanding beetle pressure. Some growers in regions with longer growing seasons opt to skip summer cucurbits altogether, planting cucurbits in time for a fall harvest when beetles are much less of an issue.
Cultivation and Residue Removal - As cucumber beetles can over-winter in crop residues both above and below ground, it is important to practice clean and thorough cultivation after fall harvests. Cornell University suggests deep tillage, compost application, and cover-cropping in the fall to encourage decomposition of residue which may harbor beetles through the winter months. Any diseased plant matter should be burned or otherwise discarded rather than composted for future use.
Mulching - Using straw, hay, plastic, or fabric as mulch can deter cucumber beetles from laying eggs in the ground near the plants. While mulching will not halt egg-laying or feeding, it will limit direct access to the stem, as well as significantly slow larval migration through the soil.
Row Cover - Floating row covers can be a big help by excluding cucumber beetles during the seedling stage of life. This allows plants to mature and develop substantive leaf mass and a strong root system, enabling the plant to withstand a moderate pest attack. Remove row covers at the onset of flowering to allow for adequate pollination. Since row covers foster weed growth too, many producers use weed suppressing mulches in combination with floating row cover.
Kaolin Clay - Here at our production farm in Wolcott, VT, we start our cucurbit season off with a bit of defensive strategy. We’ve seen a growing number of producers using Surround, a type of kaolin clay, as a protective film to ward off early damage from striped cucumber beetles. Surround comes in a powdered form, which is then mixed with water and sprayed on the seedlings. Some growers choose to dip entire flats of seedlings into the mix, which coats the underside better than does a backpack sprayer. When the seedlings are planted out in the field, the clay acts as a sticky barrier to hungry cucumber beetles, causing what some call “excessive grooming”. This keeps the beetles busy when they would otherwise be eating your prized seedlings and searching for mates.
Trap Crops - Striped cucumber beetles have food preferences just like we do. There is a long list of cucurbit varieties that are favored by cucumber beetles, and are thus excellent trap crops. By luring cucumber beetles into a concentrated area, control measures can be focused, localizing the damage and limiting the spread of disease. We recommend using Baby Blue Hubbard Squash as a trap crop, as it is highly attractive to cucumber beetles, has particularly vigorous seedlings, and is less susceptible to bacterial wilt than many other squash varieties. Trap crops should be planted on the perimeter of the field in multiple rows if beetle pressure is particularly severe. We recommend planting trap crops a week or two earlier than your primary cucurbit planting to proactively direct migration.
Sticky Traps - When it’s time to take prisoners, many growers employ yellow sticky lines of tape to trap cucumber beetles en masse. Use these ribbons in tandem with trap crops for the most effective control. Homemade yellow sticky traps can be made by coating a yellow plastic cup with glue available specifically for this use. For added effect, attach a cotton swab soaked in the oil of clove, cinnamon, cassia, allspice or bay leaf, all of which act as a powerful floral attractant.
And finally, there’s always hand-picking, but you’ll have to be stealthy because they’ll fly away when they see you coming! Let us know if you’ve had success with other strategies and best of luck to you with your summer cucurbits.
Incidentally, a few years ago, an amazing critter, a Blue Dasher dragonfly showed up in my garden, and spent most of the day flying in and out of my cantaloupe plants; I'm assuming since we had lots of cuke beetles, harder for us to catch when the plants were big, that this voracious predator was giving us a big hand in suppressing cuke beetles, stripped and spotted. Anybody else ever noticed a Blue Dasher doing the same thing?
PS this is where i read about the transmission by hand http://www.hortomallas.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=2363&action=edit&lang=en
Just curious.
My cucumbers and butternut squash are doing wonderful, no beetles..yet..and are further from the pumpkins. It must be from something else unique to that area.
One of the Rodale books says that Marketmore 76 is more resistant to bacterial wilt, and I've found this to be true. HMS sells this cultivar. I've also noticed that neighboring gardeners who grow Burpee burpless cukes have less damage, which makes sense. I think they are burpless because they have less of the cucurbitacin that attracts beetles.
I've used surround, and found it effective for a few days. The problem is that as soon as the growing tip expands just a little it is free of surround and attacts the beetles. I think the surround also slows the growth a little - in effect it shades the leaves from the sun. It's difficult to keep up spraying the surround on all the new growth.
But I mostly wanted to let you all know that tomatillos are the most effective trap crop I've found. The beetles prefer them to cukes, and the beetles don't seem to damage the tomatillos. Since the tomatillos self-sow in my garden I just wait until the hundreds of seedlings show some larval damage and then pull and destroy them. This reduces the numbers. But the ones I let grow will continue to attract the beetles all summer long.
We put up the yellow solo cup/tanglefoot traps two days ago, baited with clove oil, and have trapped a bunch of the pesky little beetles, but hand-picking as the sun sets is actually a lot more effective (for us.) They've been really easy to grab while they're mating. This is our first year at a new house, and I've never had to battle these guys before, so this is all new to me.
subject and didn't know who to ask.
and ive you a sshout out from Porter Tx! Just wanted
to mntion keep up the good job!
You can crush the eggs with your fingers, but I don't worry about it. Once they fall to the ground they will dry up, or - if they hatch - there will be nothing there for them to eat on hatching.
http://www.environmentalgreenproducts.com/store/insect-control-c-344.html Good luck to you all. Robert
I haven't found any actually on my plants, but they're flying away when I get to the garden.
Maybe a treatment of Sevin to kill the initial batch and then monitor them is what's in order. I was going to make the garlic & red pepper spray, but I want these guys gone today!
If I keep the numbers down, the plants seem to have a chance . . . I plant many more than I will need, just in case.
Datura seems to attract them as well. The purple datura can be planted around the perimeter of the garden, and the seeds are abundant to collect for next year.