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  • From: Steve Diver <steved AT ncat.org>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Re: Cucumber Beetles
  • Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 14:44:19 -0500

For cucumber beetles I can point to the ATTRA
publication.

Cucumber Beeltes: Organic and Biorational IPM
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/cucumberbeetle.html
http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/PDF/cucumberbeetle.pdf

There's a number of options. But for locations with
known pest pressure, I'm very interested in the
trap crop combined with a botanical spray.
Some curcurbit varieties exude great amounts of
the cucurbitacin pheromone/attractant, and these
specific varieties can be planted as border strips to
draw cuke beetles away from your main crop, then
you can spray the trap crop to focus your botanical
sprays and kill the beetles.

I guess that Surround WP, the kaolin clay material,
will work pretty good as a spray application to cuke
plants, or to trap crops. You can talk to Englehard
which makes Surround, for efficacy details.

For the corn earworm in sweet corn:

The USDA circular published in 1942 found that mineral oil
can be applied to corn silks with an oil dropper, the kind that is
used for machinary lubrication. This would be a low-cost
alternative to purchasing the ZeaLator applicator for $200
from Johnny's Selected Seeds.

But it is pretty cool how the ZeaLator came to be, through
ground-breaking research from Ruth Hazzard and co-workers
at Univ of Massachusetts. The IPM materials from the
Northeastern U.S. are among the best, due to all this
on-farm research investigating vegetable oils and Bt's
for non-toxic corn earworm control. Thus, the ZeaLator
exists as a tool for growers raising more than an acre
or two of sweet corn, to increase efficiency of application.

The ATTRA publication on sweet corn covers the pest
control options thoroughly, with resource links for further
information.

Organic Sweet Corn Production
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/sweetcorn.html
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/sweetcorn.pdf

Regards,

Steve Diver
NCAT / ATTRA

>Does anyone have a good remedy for cucumber beetles
>that doesn't require a pesticide license to apply?
>Also, has corn oil application to silking corn worked
>well for anyone trying to prevent earworms? I know
>there are products designed to help with the
>application of oil/Bt mixes but for the cost (over
>$200) it would seem much cheaper to use a medicine
>dropper. Any suggestions?
>
>Michael Lorion
>Park Hill Farm
>Millbury, MA







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