Small Black Insects on Squash Leaves - How to Prevent and Treat
10 years ago
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- 10 years ago
- 10 years ago
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Squash bugs - treat before you see them?
Comments (4)Thanks for the info. I am going to watch for the bugs and try the soapy water spray. Lani - how do you mix this? I think I have a recipe for Ivory liquid soap spray that calls for two spoonfuls Ivory soap to a spray bottle full of water. Now, can I have a moment to gripe? I have several tomato plants that actually look great - the best ones for me ever. Several sandwich slicer size green tomatoes and many smaller ones. Yesterday I get home and there on the grass is a pretty, green tomato (a big one), with a bite mark plus a thousand ants on it. I guess a squirrel did that. Stupid squirrel....See MoreWhat is blossom-end rot? How can I prevent it?
Comments (0)Blossom-end rot is a disorder of tomato, squash, pepper, and all other fruiting vegetables. You notice that a dry sunken decay has developed on the blossom end (opposite the stem) of many fruit, especially the first fruit of the season. This is not a pest, parasite or disease process but is a physiological problem caused by a low level of calcium in the fruit itself. Symptoms BER, or blossom-end rot usually begins as a small "water-soaked looking" area at the blossom end of the fruit while still green. As the lesion develops, it enlarges, becomes sunken and turns tan to dark brown to black and leathery. In severe cases, it may completely cover the lower half of the fruit, becoming flat or concave, often resulting in complete destruction of the infected fruit. Cause Calcium is required in relatively large concentrations for normal cell growth. When a rapidly growing fruit is deprived of calcium, the tissues break down, leaving the characteristic lesion at the blossom end. Blossom-end rot develops when the fruit's demand for calcium exceeds the supply in the soil. This may result from low calcium levels in the soil, drought stress, excessive soil moisture, and/or fluctuations due to rain or overwatering . These conditions reduce the uptake and movement of calcium into the plant, or rapid, vegetative growth due to excessive nitrogen fertilization. Management Adequate preparation of the garden bed prior to planting is the key to preventing BER. Insure adequately draining soil in the bed by adding needed ammendments, maintain the soil pH around 6.5 - a pH out of this range limits the uptake of calcium. Lime (unless the soil is already alkaline), composted manures or bone meal will supply calcium but take time to work so must be applied prior to planting. Excess ammonial types of nitrogen in the soil can reduce calcium uptake as can a depleted level of phosphorus. After planting, avoid deep cultivation that can damage the plant roots, use mulch to help stabilize soil moisture levels and help avoid drought stress, avoid overwatering as plants generally need about one inch of moisture per week from rain or irrigation for proper growth and development. Once the problem develops, quick fixes are difficult. Stabilize the moisture level as much as possible, feeding with manure or compost tea is recommended by many, foliar applications of calcium are of questionable value according to research because of poor absorption and movement to fruit where it is needed but many have reported that foliar application of magnesium (epsom salts) can effect added calcium uptake. Other various suggestions consist of powdered milk, crushed egg shells tea, bone meal tea, Tums tablets, etc. but prevention is the key. Some recommend removing affected fruit from to reduce stress in the plant. BER should not be confused with fruit abortion or inadequate pollination although the symptoms may appear similar. The onset of BER occurs only after the fruit is well on it's way to development while insufficient pollination problems terminate the fruit while still quite small....See MoreDE as a squash bug preventative
Comments (14)The problem with DE is that it does not work when wet. I guess the moisture softens the soft edges and makes them soggy so that they no longer slice the little bugs to shreds. If you use DE, you'd have to reapply it every time the area has rainfall, irrigation or even heavy dew....so, here at my house these last couple of weeks, I would have to be applying it daily. I also have found that, in general, when I use DE, it seems hit and miss and does not consistently work for all the pests it is supposed to control. I pretty much don't bother with it any more. If I was going to use it with squash plants, I'd apply it to the undersides of the leaves with a duster like a Dustin Mizer since it is the undersides of the leaves where the eggs are laid and where the nymphs hatch. Squash bug control requires great consistency and you cannot stop doing it for even one day because if you do the population will suddenly skyrocket. I find it most effective to look on the undersides of the leaves and remove and destroy the eggs when I find them. I generally use either duct tape or a lint roller to pick up the eggs off the undersides of the leaves, and then I wrap the duct tape or lint roller paper around them, following wrapping them up in it and I throw it in the kitchen trash can to ensure they don't hatch and crawl out to the garden. If nymphs have begun hatching, I carry a bowl of soapy water with me and flick them into it to drown. The earlier you kill them, the less chance they have to get away and hide. I also do the same with adult squash bugs. You have to be consistent though, and never let down your guard and decide that you've gotten all of them and can stop looking. The minute you stop looking, a million more will appear. You also can spray squash bugs with insecticidal soap and that usually kills the nymphs, though not always the adults. The ATTRA document on squash bug and squash vine borer control has lots of great techniques and I pretty much use them all, but my favorite methods are to (a) grow the plants under lightweight floating row covers pinned down tightly to the ground to exclude the pest, and (b) to grow C. moschata types of winter squash and summer squash as they are more or less not bothered by SVBs about 98% of the time (because they have solid stems the SVBs cannot tunnel through). Unfortunately, squash bugs can spread disease to C. moschata types of winter and summer squash, so you still have to control the squash bugs or they'll give your moschata squashes diseases that may (or may not) kill the plants. Most C. moschata types of squash are pretty disease tolerant, but that doesn't mean they are immune to disease. Here's the ATTRA document on organic squash bug and squash vine borer control. ATTRA: Squash Bugs and Squash Vine Borers If you do not mind using synthetic pesticides, many people report good results from spraying with liquid (not the dust) Sevin or with Bug-B-Gone. I've never used those for squash bugs so cannot comment on whether or not they work, but some folks report that they do. I grow yellow straightneck squash and zucchini early in the season, planting as early as possible in an effort to get a harvest from them, but inevitably the squash bugs or squash vine borers soon show up and the war is on. When I get tired of the war, I let the pests kill those plants and then yank out the plants and dispose of them. By then, my C. moschatas (which are planted later, since they need warmer soil to germinate and to grow) are coming along nicely and I focus on keeping the pests off of them. I do plant my C. moschatas as far away (roughly 200-300' away) as possible from the standard summer squash plants so that the squash bugs cannot quickly find the C. moschata plants....See MoreWhat are the small black bugs that leave sticky residue on begonias?
Comments (37)"I am not sure why you are so resistant to making any changes"....I just have to laugh a bit since I heard this same thing on a totally different forum (dealing with cub cadet tractors). It got to the point where I actually left the forum. I'm not sure what you are suggesting I do? Start taking apart all my potted plants down to a depth of several inches...or even farther....and add new ground to each? As to "productive plant growth"...I guess I should have shown a picture of the entire sunroom where those begonias are in. There is enough 'productive plant growth' going on out there (should be with 20 windows on all but the north side) for me. Much more and I'll need another addition. There are plants out there still going strong that I've had since the late 70s....in the same exact type of mix that I still use. All these annuals - which prompted me to post in the first place - are going to be outside hopefully by mid-May. I WILL look very carefully at what type of soil I want to put them in come fall (although whatever is around the roots, etc., will still be there anyway since I don't bring in bare root stock...I dig out the annuals in different sized clumps to fit my pots). AND I will look more closely at what sort of potting mix I'm buying - perhaps go with a bit higher quality brand (is there such a thing?) or at least a more recognizable one. BUT (sorry) I will continue to add peat moss and vermiculite. I still think (and this has not been addressed here other than my mentioning it) that the springtail situation has come into play nor am I convinced that what I'm seeing is NOT springtails. Could easily be. I think they came with huge amounts of new ground and mulch that was added within feet of the room where all my plants are!! There is a large maple tree that we had added a bed around. To accomplish that, the entire area (on a slope) had to be regraded...taking considerable amount of soil/mulch PLUS large areas needing to be seeded with new grass so now we also had large amounts of straw that was kept constantly moist for the grass seed. Definitely the conditions were right for an invasion of anything that loved moisture and damp soil, etc. We NEVER had these springtails before this project was done, and I NEVER had any of whatever is flying around the plant room and the rest of the house. Coincidence? I doubt it. So I'm still leaning towards the possibility that the plant mix may well have nothing to do with any of this. I'm wondering if perhaps things other than springtails came along with the landscaper's soil as well? End of story. I think I'm done with this thread now. Again...thanks for all the advice and thoughts. I'll report back later in the spring and/or fall....See More- 10 years ago
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