I think I'll see how those eggs fare against a lint roller tomorrow, followed by jetting, later followed by neem.

I like the lint roller idea - thanks! Think I will use it for Squash Bug eggs. I grow the c. moschata variety squash plants so the Squash Borer is not much of a concern but the *&^#$ squash bug is a HUGE problem.

DL

A lot less trouble just to squish the eggs.

I don't 'get' the lint roller; what am I missing? Please 'splain....I really want to know. :-)

I'm hoping that the visible eggs can just be lint rolled off and stuck to the roller. I can "nit pick" but would rather "roller stick".

I've been reading and getting the feeling that the plants are not just attacked by one moth, but probably a few. I'm past covering them since I already seem to have the problem.

I'll be trying some other things like:
putting out some bright yellow containers with water/vinegar/molases to trap new moths.
Putting some onion sets arround the stems.
Injecting the vines with BT.
Spraying with Neem and hot pepper stuff.
And watching those stems like a hawk.

I read if you put aluminum foil under the base of the plants it will confuse the moths and they won't lay eggs. I don't know about using anything yellow to draw them. Yellow attracts beneficial insects. I hate for you to kill any of them!

Lint roller is a cool idea, may have to give it a try myself. Washing the eggs off won't help though, they will just fall to the groun, then hatch and the illite bas&$rds will just crawl to he stems and chew their way in.

I don't want to curse myself... I'm using a row cover (Enviromesh) tacked down all around and buried. I haven't seen a single moth, hole or egg... Last year I got one zucchini and one pumpkin before they collapsed... how sad! I wasn't messing around this year! You can see in the photo, on the right, I planted the plants (one yellow squash, one zucchini, one sugar pumpkin) inside an upside down tomato cage for support. I fitted the mesh over and pinned it around. The only annoyance is the hand pollinating... but I'm trying a trick. So far I've had one female and one male open daily (how convenient) and I just pull the stamen from the male flower and stick in the female flower... I figure that aught to work! So far so good!! I hope they do ok, I love squash!

Here's my update.

The lint roller sort of worked but is too big, wraping a bit of of the tape onto your finger and going after the eggs works well to collect them all and yout don't have to worry about them stuck under your fingernails. If like to hunt blackheads, you'll get into this. You have to do it from both sides of the vine, and look under it and still you might miss a couple.

I found some end of season onion and garlic sets for pennies and though it's too late for this round, I might experient with putting some of these mesh bags on a stick and positioning the bag in the air right at stem level to nauseate the moth.

I will be injecting BT into the stem since I saw pinhole entry points from the earliest eggs. I'm hoping that the people who tried BT and failed simply didn't inject enough or in enough spots to get then all. I plan to get other parts of the vine rooted as well as insurance.

I'm wondering if there might be a concoction that would really be distastefull for the borer moth. Possibly something that used Neem oil, hot peppers, maybe some insecticidal soap and pureed garlic and onion juice. Something that remained tacky as well probably put them off.

I was on a daily crusade last year to eliminate those eggs. Every morning I would use packing tape (sticky) and also a spray bottle with soapy water and a tray held underneath to catch the eggs.

Eventually I gave up and went to a spray. This year I'm using pyrethrin and don't seem to have as big a battle.

I take it back, it's not too late to prevent new eggs because I just saw a borer moth come down and land on the plant next to me. (She's feeling a bit broken up right now) What's with people that say they never see these things, all you have to do is hang out for a bit and you'll see one.

I did inject BT into the main stem, in so many places that I had some come out the prior holes..

Prior to that I did use a bonide mix that contains the pyrethrin but that didn't seem to discourage the moth from bringing a few more eggs. I'm really thinking that a mix of cedar oil, peppermint oil, neem, pyrethrin, onion and garlic juice and something tacky might throw off the moths interest in the plant. I might try that yet this year.

I picked about 200 eggs off of 4 squash plants last week. They were on the tops and bottoms of the leaves and all over the stems.I dropped them in soapy water and then put them down the garbage disposal. I thought I had them all and dug a couple inches of the soil from around the stem to spray the stems. When I lifted the stems there were masses of eggs on the bottom touching the soil.

Just a note that when removing eggs be sure to check under the stem at soil level and a little below. I broke a few leaf stems so I filled those with BT and sprayed the lower stems with Sevin.

These evil pest destroyed all my beautiful summer and winter squash last year and I am a determined to get every last one this year that I can. I check several times a day and when I found these I had just been out to water a few hours earlier.

I haven't seen damage yet of any I may have missed. I had them on the winter squash in mid August last year.

I just removed 3 leaves that had the eggs on them and threw them in the garbage. Are these squash bugs or squash vine borer (I killed two of the moths a few weeks ago, they sort of look like fireflies, but are very visible during the day).

{{gwi:62184}}

buford, those are squash bugs (stink bugs ?) not SVB. You may want to burn them rather than just toss them in the garbage where they may hatch and fly.

Yeah, squash bug eggs...squish them, incinerate them, destroy them one way or another lol... Stink bug eggs look similar, but I think they are cloudy white to tan in color rather than reddish brown.

Re SVB moths looking like fire flys...they are much larger and resemble a red wasp, not really at all like fire flys...

Thanks, I think I've gone past when the borers will strike here. Last year my squash was dead by this point. We sometimes get a second wave. I am sure the bugs I killed where the borer moths because they were flying around the veggies in the middle of the day.

I will properly dispose of the leaves with eggs. I did see a stink looking bug on the squash yesterday, probably the mom. I should have killed it but I am never sure if they are good or bad bugs.

srj19,
Hows your battle going? I am having a similar battle too, with Acorn squash and pumpkins. The SVBs seem to target the Acorns a lot more, and I pick as many as 30 off of them some days, although its been more like 10 or so daily the past few days. But I usually just pick them with my fingers. They seem to be glued onto stems and leaves usually. I spray the vine regularly with neem oil... not sure how effective it is since I still get lots of eggs, I don't think it repels them much. I do focus most of my spraying on the vine, and I dont seem to get as many eggs on the vine now as I do on the leaf stems and the leaves. I got a late start checking and battlling SVB on my acorn squash, so some of them got it, and I have injected BT and extracted a few grubs, and I have buried some of the vines to encourage secondary roots, and so far so good. The plant have even survived the 107 degree heat we had for a few days here in Texas.

How's you battle going? Any updates? Think the neem oil or BT is working?
I'm pretty diligent about searching and picking the eggs, borderline obsessive actually... we'll see what happens.

I injected BT in two cycles now and it's been largely effective. I have found some damage but it was only in an offshoot (the hollow body leading to the leaf) and not in any main stem.

I've probably over used the BT and will probably be calling the company to make sure that the stuff is safe larger potentcies. Maybe it becomes inactived after a period in the plant who knows.

I have also had to now deal with japanese beetles for the first time and these $%^#@'s realy like to chew on bean vegetation and blueberry vegetation. I'm going to mix some garlic/onion/cedar oil/pepermine oil/neem/hot chili/insectacidal soap and try it on the beetles and next year on the borers.

I injected BT in two cycles now and it's been largely effective. I have found some damage but it was only in an offshoot (the hollow body leading to the leaf) and not in any main stem.

I've probably over used the BT and will probably be calling the company to make sure that the stuff is safe larger potentcies. Maybe it becomes inactived after a period in the plant who knows.

I have also had to now deal with japanese beetles for the first time and these $%^#@'s realy like to chew on bean vegetation and blueberry vegetation. I'm going to mix some garlic/onion/cedar oil/pepermine oil/neem/hot chili/insectacidal soap and try it on the beetles and next year on the borers.

Thanks for the update. I've wondered about the BT injections, if I should do it as a preventative, even to healthy vine segments , or wait until I see signs of damage before I inject. I just don't like piercing healthy looking vines if I don't need to.

I think the problem with waiting until you see evidence of a problem is that you have to have keen eyes to see the tiny entry points or the small amounts of frass in the begining.

A compromise is maybe watching the plants in June for the eggs and then injecting.

Next year (maybe this year if there's a second round as I heard is possible) I'll try the diy organic spray and see if I can get them to simply avoid the plant by covering the plans natural smell or making it so nasty to the moth that they just avoid it. Maybe that's nearly imposible, we'll find out.

hope the spray works to repel them. Let us know if you try it and it works. Here in Texas its just been continuous eggs, instead of distinct rounds of them. I've been picking off eggs for at least 3 weeks now. I use a syringe that came with a printer cartridge refill kit. The needle is a little thick and leaves a noticeable hole in the stem when I inject so that's why i am reluctant to inject when I don't have to. I wish I had some real needle syringes.