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.

I DESPISE squash bugs! But, since I don't want to kill pollinators or other beneficial insects, I have used companion planting, DE, soap sprays to control them. I also gather tips from fellow gardeners - LOVE the duct tape idea for the eggs, Gumby! One thing that works to keep the squash bugs from my cucumbers is planting them among tansy. It has worked for me every year, though I have had problems in another area of the garden with my squash and melons. Someone suggested to avoid using mulch for my squash, and that is what I will do this year, since the cukes get no mulch either - must be a connection. Row cover is another good tip, but I have not yet tried this. I would encourage you to try and avoid using pesticides, as the jury's still out on the connection betweeen their use and the problems with bee colony collapse. Depends on what study you read, and who put it out there, but my bet is that pesticide use cannot be ruled out as at least part of the cause.

Link: Here is a link that might be useful: Insect traps, sampling, etc.

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