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Are the bugs you describe the younglings of the
potato beetle? They sound like it - have you seen them
before?
I have found hand picking to be succesful in the
past, too - and I, like you, have found that potato beetles do not eat blue
potato plants as readily as they do the non-blue kinds. My
friend gave up on growing potatoes because of potato bugs (she grows in the same
place each year -small garden) and I recommended that she take some of
my blue potatoes left from last year - she did, and reports a successful
crop.
Jill
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2003 12:27
PM
Subject: [Market-farming] Potato Pest
HELP!
I walked out this morning to turn on the water to find my
Rose Finn Apple Fingerling Potato plants being ravaged once again by a pest
that I cannot seem to identify to save my soul....so I am hoping that someone
here will know what it is....
The bugs are reddish brown in color. They
have a double row of about 7 raised dots on the edge of either side of their
body. They are soft and rather thick and have no wings. They have 6 legs (3 on
either side) toward the front of the body. The head is mostly black with 2
very short antennae. There is a black stripe around the point where the head
joins the body. I found them congregating on the leaves in large groups and
they leave a black sticky tar in their path. They range in size from 1/16" to
about 1/2". I found a few on the All-Blue Potatoes which are just beginning to
produce new potatoes. There were none on the Caribe Potatoes which I have been
harvesting off of for about a month. The Rose Finn's have only begun flowering
about 2 weeks ago and I have not begun to harvest from them yet. Earlier in
the season, the Rose Finn's survived a major Potato Beetle attack which also
did not effect the Caribe's or All-Blues. There has never been anything else
grown on the ground where the potatoes are growing.
For now, I have
hand-picked most of the unknown bugs that I could find (my Geckos and Ducks
are enjoying them immensely). I will apply another layer of thick mulch today
and hope that with another day or two of hand-picking they will be gone. This
strategy worked extremely well with the potato beetles so until I hear
otherwise I will try this with these pests as well.
I think that next
year I will skip the Rose Finn's. The Caribe's have wildly outperformed my
expectations and the All-Blue's are the first thing gone at market! Thanks in
advance for the help.
Shelly Elliott
Idle Thyme Farm
www.IdleThymeFarm.com
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