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  • From: Allan Balliett <igg AT igg.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Cucumber Beetles] Surround WP for corn earworm control
  • Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 08:50:56 -0400

Bill -

What more do you know about cucumber beetles? Do they actually have natural enemies? (Or did they at one point?) Are there practical controls for them in the organic arena? -Allan

Just a fine point but it's unlikely that cucumber beetles were feeding on
the corn silks. It was probably western corn rootworm beetle, which looks
like cucumber beetles (yellow/black stripes, same size, shape). To
distinguish them, look at the belly. If it's black, it's cucumber beetle. If
it's yellow, it's corn rootworm beetle. It's important to be able to
distinguish them because they cause different problems and present different
risks. For example, cuke beetles can transmit viral and bacterial diseases
to cucurbit crops. Corn rootworm beetles are not known to. Cucumber beetles
don't normally feed on corn silks but western (and northern and southern)
corn rootworm beetles feed voraciously on corn silks.

Bill Shoemaker
Sr Research Specialist, Food Crops
Univ of Illinois - St Charles Hort Research Center

The cuke beetles ate all the silks off of our
3rd and 4th plantings making the cobs very
unevenly filled, much worse than having
earworms (which we also have).


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