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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] cucumbers

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  • From: John Hendrickson <jhendric AT wisc.edu>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] cucumbers
  • Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 10:21:02 -0600

Cucumber beetles are a royal pain.  One thing I have tried with partial success is to fill yellow plastic bowls or cups with a soap solution.  I place these every few plants down the row.  The beetles are attracted to yellow and assume the bowls/cups are flowers.  This catches some but they proliferate so rapidly that it is not a complete solution.  Row cover and successive plantings seems to me to be the best organic solution.  Eliot Coleman's books claim that a well balanced soil will help fend off cucumber beetles.  He advises using sheep manure and dried seaweed.

Has anyone on this list ever tried to create a temporary hoophouse (field tunnel) using row cover instead of plastic?  I am envisioning a structure just tall enough to walk through and trellising the cucumbers.

-John

At 08:58 PM 11/18/2006 -0600, you wrote:
I would like to hear of any organic cucumber beetle control that other growers have tried.  (I  think that bats wouldn't help since they are nocturnal when the beetles aren't active)  I know of people using the kaolin clay sprays-but those get expensive too.

John Hendrickson
Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1535 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI  53706
608-265-3704
www.cias.wisc.edu



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