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market-farming - RE: holistic approach to blister beetles?

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Wiediger, Alison" <awiediger AT Hart.k12.ky.us>
  • To: 'market farming' <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: holistic approach to blister beetles?
  • Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 11:12:04 -0500


> ----------
> From: nan and stewart[SMTP:stewart AT watervalley.net]
> Blister beetles have overrun my organic market garden (northwest
> mississippi) just this month - i am not in depair as i know the soil is
> still being brought into health (earthworms, microbes, etc.) but in the
> meantime, what are these blister beetles symptomatic of, if anything
> special?
>
> i know i can apply various organic pesticides (but i hate to use
> pyrethrin/rotenone unless absolutely necessary), but are there natural
> enemies i can encourage to bring about a balance here....my rodale guide
> says to grow under floating row covers, and I know that these guys also
> eat grasshopper eggs (of which we have a gazillion here)....the advice is
> to knock them off th plant with soapy water, but they come back pretty
> quickly and have decimated the plants.
>>>>>>>>

> What we found worked for a while was to control grasshoppers. As you
> said, the beetles eat grasshopper eggs, so fewer grasshoppers, less food,
> fewer blister beetles. We used nosema locusta to get the grasshopper
> population under control and the blister beetle population followed. That
> application was about 7 years ago. Just this year, the beetle population
> seems to ahve risen - but that may be due as much to the lack of any real
> winter weather over the last few years as to grasshoppers. We will spread
> nosema locusta again next spring, just to be sure. Even this year,
> although the nightshades in particular seem to ahve a lot of blister
> beetles, the amount of damage done isn't great. They are, however, much
> larger than we have ever seen - we have the grey ones, and some are well
> over 1 1/4 inch long - about double the normal size. We're very careful
> not to squash them against bare skin!
>
Alison Wiediger
Au Naturel Farm
http://aunaturelfarm.homestead.com

>
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