Predator for grasshoppers? Eating everything!
brandyray
12 years ago
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Kimmsr
12 years agobrandyray
12 years agoRelated Discussions
Invasion of the predators
Comments (5)It's sad to have so many cats disappear. Last year, I had a bunch of tiny monarch cats. Even though my 7yo dd told me to take them in, I simply wasn't ready and vowed to do it the following day. Needless to say, they were gone. Just recently I had 18, probably more, BST cats on a parsley plant. I need to purchase more as to put them in my cat cage, and I wasn't sure if they had been treated or not, so I wanted to wash them thoroughly. Needless to say, when I checked the plant, only one was found. ONE! I snapped it up and put him on the new parsley and put it in the cage. Thankfully it's getting nice & plump. The odds are soooo not in the favor of the cats :( I'm still kicking myself for not taking them in sooner, AGAIN! I think I've officially learned NOT to snooze......See MoreNeem Oil for Grasshoppers and Other Pests?
Comments (12)Kelley, Bt 'kurstaki' is a narrow-spectrum bio-insecticide that targets caterpillers and larvae that bother many ornamental and vegetable plants. In a residential landscape and/or home garden, it is often used to control tomato hornworms, tobacco hornworms, cutworms, tomato fruitworms/corn earworms, canker worms, leaf miners and various types of grub worms. It is available in both a liquid form and in a powdered, granular form (Dipel Dust and similar products). I've linked one of the more common Bt Caterpiller killer type products below. Most all of the Bt 'kurstaki' products either say Worm Killer or Caterpiller Killer on the label or have images of caterpillers on the label or both. All Bt products are made of toxins derived from naturally-occurring bacteria. The other species of Bt most commonly used in a home setting are: (1) the 'San Diego' or 'tenebrionis' species-derived products (San Diego is genetically engineered so it cannot be used in Certified Organic operations, but tenebrionis is not genetically-engineered so it can be used in Certified Organic operations) which is used to control beetle larvae, and most often used to control the larval form of the Colorado Potato Beetle; and (2) the 'Israelensis' species, available as a granular product you sprinkle in standing water or as 'mosquito dunks' to drop into water. It controls mosquito larvae. One caution about using Bt 'kurstaki' is that it kills ALL butterfly and moth larvae, so be very careful when applying it so it does not wipe out all your butterflies and moths. Many butterfly gardeners choose not to use Bt 'kurstaki' because they don't want to harm the very butterflies and moths they are trying to attract to their plantings. For webworms, I usually just take a stick (or a long, telescoping pole pruner if the webs are high up in a tree) and break open the web. Once the caterpillars lose the protection of that web, the wild birds here gobble them up. I have a huge bird population here in our rural area, one I have carefully 'cultivated' by feeding them year-round, always providing numerous drinking water sources for them daily and a birdbath as well, and by providing birdhouses for them. If you are in an urban or suburban setting with a smaller population of wild birds, you may not have enough of them around to control the webworms. I think Bt is a wonderful solution if someone needs to control caterpillers, but I don't spray it myself because I like having butterflies and moths around. Some people say you can't grow fruit trees here without spraying for worms, but I've harvested over 350 lbs. of fruit from trees which were not sprayed with anything. Having said that, I don't usually have tent caterpillers (aka webworms) in large nmbers and the few I see (some years I see none) are taken care of by natural predators. I do think some parts of OK have a much more severe problem with webworms than we have here in southcentral OK. Barbara, Believe me, it has not been an easy choice to refrain from spraying insecticial soap or neem oil, and I'm not saying I'd never, ever use either one or both. For example, neem oil can be very useful in flea control, but my dogs usually don't have a big flea or tick problem, so I don't usually use it for that purpose. (I wouldn't hesitate to spray the ground in their dog yard and the fenceline around it if they did have fleas though.) In a 'bad year' I'll spray the dog yard's ground and fenceline with peppermint soap which is a great repellent. Neem is found in many pet products, including flea shampoos, and I have used those tea tree oil flea shampoos on our dogs in a year when there is a heavy infestation of fleas or ticks. (I've also bathed them in Cedarcide, orange oil-based shampoos and peppermint soap in years like that....2007 was one of those years.) Bagworms are very hard to control, but I've only seen them one year since moving here, and never since then, so I don't have to deal with them. I generally ignore leaf miners. I've never had them do enough damage to kill a plant or even to significantly harm one. The kaolin clay products like Surround are very helpful in some instances, but there again I choose not to use them. They make the garden look hideously awful, among other things, and you have to reapply it after rain or overhead watering washes it off the leaves. Kaolin clay reminds me of the old folk remedy of mixing all-purpose flour with water and spraying it on the foliage to keep the hoppers away. I used that in the bad grasshopper years back around 2003 or so, but didn't like the way the garden looked and couldn't tell it made a big dent in the amount of hopper damage I've been seeing. I didn't think it was worth the time I spent spraying. You aren't seeing a large amount of damage from pest insects because some sort of beneficials are eating them. I have seen huge numbers of insects, but not correspondingly high levels of plant damage. Potato beetles were my worst issue, and I just hand-picked them. My regular garden turtle was very frustrated that he was fenced out of the new potato patch area, and once I realized he wanted in there, I opened the gate and let him in and I haven't had to hand-pick CPBs since. Once he picked that area clean, he returned to the regular garden, leaving me to wonder how he 'knew' the CPBs (or, for that matter, the potato plants) were out there in the new area away from the main garden. If you aren't seeing significant levels of lady bugs and dragon flies, that means they've gone someplace else where there are more pest insects to eat. The first few years here, we always had billions of beneficial insects of all kinds. Then, their numbers abruptly dropped and I was sort of panicky, wondering what was 'wrong'. Finally I realized they left because there wasn't enough of a pest insect population to attract them. Now I see them come and go, appearing seemingly out of the blue if a pest population shows up like the aphids that showed up on my sugar snap peas this spring, and then leaving when their work is done. We have many wasps here, probably more than a regular homeowner would be comfortable having around. I am always happy to have them here because they are such great predators, but every time Tim walks out the door, it seems like one stings him (2 or 3 times this week alone). I suspect the many types of wasps are the reason I seldom have problems with caterpillers. You know, logic would tell you that someone with all the nightshade plants I have would have a major tomato/tobacco hornworm problem, but I see, perhaps, 8 or 10 most years and I give the wasps credit for those low numbers. It has taken me a long time to arrive at the point that I seldom rely on any sort of insecticide and there were some hard years when I worried the natural ecosystem would fail, but it never has. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Example of a Bt 'kurstaki' product...See Morerabbits are eating everything...help
Comments (12)Hi, I moved out into the country in NW Iowa two years ago, and excitedly bought "wildlife" bundles from my state forestry department. Dh and I planted over 200 little shrubs, trees, etc...we were so hopeful (and soooo naive!) By Spring the rabbits had decimated nearly every little tree, eaten my rosebushes to nubs, and so forth. Well, not learning my lesson, I spent a small fortune on larger shrubs and trees the next year; they were chomped on, too. You should have seen my "mad and angry dance" last Spring, as I discovered the damage. :-) Well, I'm older and wiser, now. My shrubs nearly all live in their *rabbit wire* cages (it's sooo ugly but a lot less infuriating) and I'm not sure when I'll have the courage to remove them. Rabbit wire--sold at my local hardware store--is a bit more expensive than regular chicken wire, but it's sturdier and makes tidier cylinders. It's heavier gauge, has small openings in the botton and larger openings toward the top (so the shrubs can grow through the wire) and I'll never plant without it, again! By the way, I have EIGHT cats and even though we've hardened our hearts and stopped rescuing the screaming, pitiful baby rabbits that they cull in the Spring (my daughters still scream in horror, though.) it doesn't seem to have cut down the rabbit population very much. My husband *does* go out in the dark of night and "mark his territory" (need I explain further? ;-) around the perimeter of our vegetable garden, and that seems to cut down on the predation in there...However, unless I force-fed him a keg of beer every night, I doubt he could do the same for all the shrubs, trees, and flowers on the property. LOL!...See MoreWild Rabbits Eat Everything
Comments (4)You can buy wire fences that are designed to keep rabbits out of the garden. They can be purchased in rolls at hardware stores. IâÂÂve used them, and so far itâÂÂs very effective. Or you can grow tall grass surrounding your garden as they will munch them and Ignore your plants....See Morelazy_gardens
12 years agoKimmsr
12 years agobrandyray
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12 years agoKimmsr
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10 years agoKimmsr
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10 years agolazy_gardens
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10 years agoKimmsr
10 years agorhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
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brandyrayOriginal Author