When vines begin to run,apply to bases of plants 4 times at seven day intervals. Pheremone traps for squash vine borer are commercially available. These traps can be used to indicate when moth activity begins. The use of Spintor for looper control will reduce squash vine borer populations. I believe that the eggs hatch 5-7 days depending on daytime temps and humidity

I have about 7 acorn squash plants, and 2 hill of young pumpkin plants. Everyday I go out and pick eggs. I had just become knowledgeable about the infestation of SVBs since I had an earlier set of plants die with the borers after only a few squash.... So I got a late start trying to defend my second batch of acorn squash and have seen some SVB damage, but I injected them with BT and have sprayed NEEM and also let some soak into the ground. (I've read that NEEM acts systemically, and the plant absorbs it, hope its true!). My Acorn plants are doing well and starting to put out male flowers. I pick about 20-30 eggs off each day. Like Lisa said, I find them everywhere but a pattern I notice is this: - they seem to prefer the outermost plants, especially 2 that are more isolated from the other. (the others are close together) - the definitely like under leaf stems, and close to the main vine. - NEEM oil doesn't seem to deter them from laying... Still see same number of eggs as before I started spraying with it. - One more thing, having a hand mirror REALLY HELPS. I've been able to use the mirror to see the plant from different angles and have found many eggs I would have not seen otherwise. I know this could all be frustrating, but I've began to think if this as a game, a challenge, and see if I can outpick the SVBs egg-laying. Hopefully the BT injections have killed the worms inside. I really didn't want to slice the vines open. So far 1 week after injecting, the plants look real healthy, and I have not seen any more new frass... there is some stem cracking, but after more injections of BT, I have also tried to cover a lot of the stem with dirt and watered it well, so it can heal up. Now regarding the pumpkins, I've picked eggs off of them but haven't found nearly as many eggs on it compared to the Acorn squash. The plants are still pretty young though, just beginning to send runners. I notice the pumpkin stems are a lot hairier and spike-ier than the Acorn squash... wonder if that somewhat discourages the SVB? Keeping my fingers crossed and praying I can beat these beasts. If and when the pumpkin vines get real big it will be challenging to keep them egg free. Being in North Texas, I think we have multiple generations of SVB, so it wont probably be until late Sept that I dont have to worry about them anymore :(

cmonkey :I've thought the same thing too, and remember trying to figure out what they mean by "wild cucurbits". tigrikt - Thanks for posting that article. I love reading those old articles and seeing what people did a long time ago. I had to google "Cymlings" as I had no idea what he was talking about... they are another name for "Pattypan"... interesting. I always wonder what the Native americans did, when they grew pumpkins. I bet they probably had some good tricks they used. Its interesting how the articles names these different pesticides they recommend. Looking them up, they are all banned now for home use for being too toxic. Its a wonder our ancestors didn't all die of cancer and poisoning with all these chemicals they used! I like the idea of an "ovicide". I wonder if we have anything now in modern times would not be very toxic but could do the same thing. Would be a lot easier to just spray the vines than hand pick the eggs.

I have grown Tatume here a couple of times. While it outcompetes squash bugs, the squash vine borers still can kill it in a year when they are really bad. I don't grow it any more because we liked the flavor/texture of Seminole harvested young (baseball to softball-sized) better than Tatume. It is a huge space hog too, and because I already grow 6-10 kinds of C. moschatas most years, the last thing I need is a space hog that isn't as tasty as they are. Bon, I couldn't help noticing how many of my favorite Texas horticulturalists (Sam Cotner, Malcom Beck, Howard Garrett) were in Howard Garrett's story about Malcom's pumpkin. (Mr. Garrett and Mr. Beck write extensively on organic gardening and all their books are excellent, and Mr. Cotner wrote THE book on growing Vegetables in Texas. I've worn out 3 copies of it and am on my 4th.) Jay White, by the way, writes regularly for Texas Gardener magazine (as does Greg Grant) and their articles and columns are the first ones I read when a new magazine arrives. It is a well-known and well-understood phenomenon that healthy plants grown in healthy soil are more disease tolerant and more pest tolerant than less healthy plants. When pests relentlessly attack plants, I try to figure out what it is about those specific plants that make them less healthy and, therefore, more alluring to pests and to diseases. Sometimes it is obvious to me because the plants under attack are growing in less healthy soil. Sometimes it is something much more subtle---like cool-season plants that are beginning to be subjected to hotter temperatures than they like. Howard Garrett makes a convincing argument for us to grow our brassicas in the fall only in this part of the country because they have less pests since they are less stressed in cooler conditions---and I believe he is right about that. And, there are some pests, like grasshoppers, that relentlessly attack everything still green in the hot summer months, whether the plants are healthy and happy are not. So, for every "rule" that we observe, their is an exception, and I find grasshoppers to be one of the exceptions to the rule that healthy plants in healthy soil are not attacked by pests and diseases. I grew up eating yellow summer squash for as far back as I can remember and nothing I've ever grown as a more pest-tolerant substitute for it is 100% acceptable. When I want yellow squash, I simply want yellow squash---nothing else will do. So, in order to have it, I just grow it in low tunnel rows under row cover and hand-pollinate it. I feel like I don't have to settle for less in my own garden, and growing Tatume instead of the yellow squash I really want is, indeed, settling for less. You'll never know how you feel about Tatume until you grow it yourself. I just wasn't crazy about the flavor and didn't find it to be a really heavy producer either. To be fair to Tatume, it never will look like a heavy producer when it is grown adjacent to Seminole because Seminole outproduces it (and everything else) every single time. There is a reason Seminole is a perennial fave in our garden----it is beaten everything else for about 15 years now, and that track record is hard to break. It has been around forever....I can remember it being on seed racks in Texas when I was a child, although I think then it likely was sold as Calabacita, because that is the name that pops into my head every time I see a packet of the seeds. For squash vine borer tolerance or resistance, as George noted, C. moschatas will win every time and, for me, the C. agyrospermas like White Cushaw, Green-Striped Cushaw and Orange-Striped Cushaw are in second place. Tatume might come in third, or actually, a distant fourth behind every kind of yellow summer squash that exists when grown under row cover. YMMV. You can grow any squash or pumpkin you want if only you'll grow them under summerweight row cover, tulle netting, mosquito netting, etc. and hand-pollinate. Does it take longer and a bit more effort? Sure it does, but it is worth it to avoid the heartbreak of losing plants to the dastardly SVBs. Dawn