And why are the Brown Stink Bugs harmful?

Randy,

Brown Stink Bugs are a major agricultural pest in this country and the damage they do varies from plant to plant depending on what the crop is and depending on what part of the plant they attack.

In my garden, they go after tomatoes and cause a condition commonly referred to as "cloudy spot". The bugs pierce the skin of the tomatoes and, when they do so, some sort of toxin is injected in the fruit that causes the skin to turn yellowish to whitish in a little circle. If you peel away the skin and cut into the flesh underneath, it is sort of corky and whitish. It also has a bitter flavor. If you have enough of these little 'spots' on a tomato, it is ruint, although sometimes you can cut away the bad parts (if there aren't too many of them) and save the rest of the tomato.

In my garden there doesn't seem to be anything that eats them so I try to handpick them as soon as I see them. Leaf-footed bugs do similar damage, although I don't necessarily see them every year. Brown stink bugs normally show up here in July, but last year (which was very hot very early) they showed up in May. I've only seen one brown stink bug so far, but I have found cloudy spot on several ripe tomatoes already.

Dawn

Thanks Dawn. I haven't seen any yet, and none of my tomatoes are ripe, though getting there, but I'll be on the lookout.

Randy,

You're welcome. You might never have them, you know. I gardened for about 25 years as a adult (and many more as a kid) before the darned things found me and my tomato plants.

Look at the linked image below. The tomato on the bottom is the kind of damage I usually see in the years I have stink bug damage. Sometimes it is only one or two little mottled spots and other times there are a lot of them. Mine usually don't get the black spots shown in the top two tomatoes in the photo.

Stink bugs are the only significant tomato pest I have most years, but they are a doozy of a pest.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Image: Stink Bug Damage on Tomatoes

Dawn,

This kind of goes along with the other thread about shading tomato plants where you talked about stink bugs.
Do you think your stink bug numbers could be down due to the number of frogs and snakes you are seeing this year?

I dont know much about the habits of stink bugs, but could that be one possibility? Of course it obviously only works if they are at or near ground level for the frogs to get them. Or would a frog even eat a stink bug? If they taste like they smell why would you!

Just curious on your thoughts.

Matt

Matt,

Stink bugs are not known to have many natural predators, which is one reason they are so hard to control. There are some species of stink bugs that are herbivores and eat plants early on, and then turn into carnivores and eat....guess what.....other stink bugs! Other than that, some species of lizards and some bugs eat them sometimes, but their 'stinkiness' gives them protection from most other predators.

I don't know that the frogs or snakes ever reach the stink bugs. Our frogs tend to be hanging out around the back yard where we have a lily pond, quite a bit of shade, and 30 tomato plants in containers. The big garden is quite some distance from that and most of it is in sun until mid- to late afternoon. There's usually not many frogs in our hot, dry, sunny garden although we have a resident turtle and, every now and then, a toad and some lizards.

The snakes are an issue in and of themselves since we mostly have timber rattlers and copperheads (that's what I've been seeing this week), water moccasins in our ponds and creeks (thankfully they are not in the garden) and an occasional western diamondback rattler. Oh, and rat snakes and chicken snakes that like to get in the chicken coop and eat eggs and chicks. While snakes might be helpful in the garden, I don't want them there. I hate snakes.

In my garden, the stink bugs are usually on plants anywhere from waist-high to head high, so while a snake might be able to reach them, the toads and frogs and turtles couldn't.

At least here (as far as I know), the stink bugs are primarily garden and agricultural pests. In parts of the country where the winters are colder, they invade homes in the fall, undoubtedly looking for a warm place to overwinter. It is my understanding that stinkbugs inside the house are hard to control, and it is hard to keep them out, because they've been known to come down the chimneys!

If I had to make my best guess, I'd give our one-day 11.87" rainfall credit for the lower numbers of stinkbugs and squash bugs (so far) this year. I'd bet that relentless rainfall washed away the overwintering ones that weren't up and about yet. We also have been having greatly reduced numbers of grasshoppers, probably for the same reason.

Unfortunately, grasshoppers tend to accompany hot, drought-like weather, so we all may have trouble with them later ths summer. I am seeing a lot of tiny hoppers (1/4" to 1/2") just these last couple of days, so clearly another hatch is on. Here at our house, the guineas and chickens control them pretty well though.

Dawn

Dawn I have looked at pictures of the spined soldier bug and stink bugs and except for the playboy bunny on the end, I don't see a difference. If I hold a stink bug and can smell it, are you saying that is a reliable way to tell them apart? You don't have to squash them to smell them so that seems like the easiest way to distinguish one from the other. Why has no one else mentioned that?