Good article. It's in my bookmarks! I've had battles with squash bugs in the past and am coming at them with row covers this year. Thought I'd try the board thing too - putting some boards down at night and picking them off from beneath them in the morning. Neem oil and marigolds really didn't do the trick last year and I can only spend so much time combing the plants for eggs and bugs.

The article said "Supplemental fertilization
may be necessary to promote the vigorously
growing plants that can tolerate one or two
borers and still produce a crop through
additional rooting along the stem."

Unless I misread this, it seems to be saying (in laymans terms).. that you can get additional rooting/production by covering the stems/vines .... I didn't know that...

Doesn't look good for my summer squash. I LOVE moschata squash, but they simply aren't yellow crooknecks, zucchini, or patty pans.

The best squash bug control I have is a motivated, upper-elementary school boy paid to squash the eggs.

The borers, however, keep defeating me. :-(

Yes, Jonhughes, squash vines, especially the long-vined sorts, will root along the vine if you throw a shovelfull of soil or compost over the node.

The buttercups always seem to develop supplemental roots, never the moschatas which are resistant anyway. The more I work with OP summer squash (C. pepo), the more I see stem re-rooting, which really does help them survive borers. The OP yellow crookneck from Fedco ran 14 feet and rooted like crazy.

Here is a link that might be useful: novel way to plant squash

I've tried EVERYTHING for borers! NOTHING works. I mulch heavily with paper and straw (I've even tried pinestraw for it's unfriendliness), wrapped stems in foil, laced the plant with diatomacious (sp?) earth in and around (and under the mulch), EVERYTHING and still, I can sometimes get a few zucchini from a plant and that's it. I can't wait until I get the larger garden going and can use squash anywhere I like under plants, shrubs, as "flowers" and confound the danged borers. Last year was my first year for squash bugs. I've never had them before. Annoying things!

Thanks for the article! I've just about given up on beating the SVBs here - the past few years they have killed off all my summer squash plants before I got anything off them. However, I found a delicious heirloom winter squash at a farmers market and saved the seeds...did some research on "courge lounge de nice" (per the seller) to find out this variety is used as both a summer and winter squash. It is a moschata type, and the borers don't bother it. Last summer I had 2 hearty vines from my saved seed, which kept us sated with delicious summer squash through-out the season. The ones we missed were left to mature as winter squash (5-6 pounds each). I have a few various summer squash seeds left over that I'll probably try this year, but if I can't beat the SVB with increased efforts I think I'll just stop trying. The heirloom is delicious as both summer and winter squash, prolific and easy to grow. I haven't been able to find the seed commercially available here, but 'Rampicante-Tromboncino' Squash appears to be a very similar variety that many domestic mail order houses carry. There are some rave reviews of the Tromboncino on Cornell's excellent varietal review site linked below.

Happy Gardening!

Here is a link that might be useful: Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners

I'm going to try some parthenocarpic (self-pollinating)zucchini and cucumbers under row covers this year. I got a bolt of 108" wide tulle from JoAnn fabrics at 50% off. It's cheaper and wider than agribon and reemay.
The theory is that I will only have to raise the covers to harvest.

The varieties I'll be trying are Cavilli, Segev, and Dunja squash and Diamant cucumber.

I'll also try the Tromboncino again this year. Last year I got a late start and it wasn't in the sunniest location, so I didn't get a lot of fruit. But it also didn't get killed by the SVB! This year I'll make sure to get it full sun and an early start.

Nice link, and a very good article. The ATTRA publications are very useful for organic gardening... I still haven't worked my way through all of them.

SVB is terrible in my area, and would kill up to 100% of my C. pepo and C. maxima squashes without protection. For the past 3 years, I've applied floating row covers over those squashes after planting (I use transplants). The row cover is buried at all edges, and remains on until female flowers have appeared, or until the vines outgrow the cover. This appears to protect the plants during SVB egg laying, because I've had no infestations at all on covered plants. Not only that, but there have been very few squash bugs, and the population of cucumber beetles is much reduced. I could not grow squash reliably without this method.

A couple of my own observations.

As quoted from the article, ..."Supplemental fertilization may be necessary to promote the vigorously growing plants that can tolerate one or two borers and still produce a crop through additional rooting along the stem."

My own observations have been that fertilized squash plants seem to be more attractive to squash bugs & cuke beetles. This would seem to make sense, since the compounds which attract the insects might be released in larger quantities, under the more rapid growth caused by the fertilizer... particularly the high-N fertilizer that stimulates heavier foliage.

Because of this observation, I stopped using fertilizer on my squash two years ago, and the pest pressure has been much less than in previous years. Unfortunately, my yields without fertilizer have also been noticeably lower. It may be that low-N fertilizer, and/or later application, might offer the best of both worlds... I will be experimenting further in that direction.

"The buttercups always seem to develop supplemental roots, never the moschatas which are resistant anyway. The more I work with OP summer squash (C. pepo), the more I see stem re-rooting, which really does help them survive borers. The OP yellow crookneck from Fedco ran 14 feet and rooted like crazy."

The tendency to root at the nodes is present in all squash species, but varies by variety. I grew some of the smaller Butternuts, which were very reluctant to root. "Tahitian", also C. moschata, roots aggressively. One year, I hybridized a Butternut with "Tahitian"; the resultant seed produced very large butternuts, and vines that rooted heavily.

One of the rave reviews on the Cornell site for "Zucchetta Rampicante" is mine. ;-) It roots very aggressively. Some years it gets attacked by SVB (I can see the frass) but it seems to kill the larvae, and the vines show no sign of infection later in the season. Squash bugs also might attack it when the plants are young, but once established, nothing touches it.

Oh, another pest observation. When I see swarms of cuke beetles attacking a particular plant of "Zucchetta", I nearly always find a mature squash bug attacking the stem. The reaction of the plant to this attack - and its weakened state - appears to attract the beetles. The single squash bugs are easily killed with a soap spray.

Last year, I grew several naked-seeded C. pepo pumpkins for trial. The semi-bush "Kakai" was very reluctant to form roots; and it has been very susceptible to SVB for me in the past. "Little Greenseed", on the other hand, had long vines & rooted wherever it contacted bare soil. If SVB attack can't be prevented, choose varieties that have demonstrated good rooting potential.