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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Water blasting bug eggs

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  • From: "Beth Spaugh" <lists AT rhomestead.com>
  • To: "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Water blasting bug eggs
  • Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:23:08 -0400

Water works great on aphids, at least if you can wash them down the drain as in a greenhouse.  If it knocked CPB off ( and in the instars are soft bodied), I think they would just climb back up.
 
I get by with early handpicking and then one or two sprays of spinosad.  I think Monterey Garden Spray is an approved formulation. It is toxic to bees, so spray at sundown.
 
Beth Spaugh
Rehoboth Homestead, Peru, NY
Farm Fresh Food Club CSA - http://rhomestead.com 
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Garden fresh vegetables, organically grown, and pastured chicken, duck, and geese
 
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From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Road's End Farm
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2010 5:00 PM
To: Market Farming
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Water blasting bug eggs


On Apr 11, 2010, at 4:40 PM, Lova Andriamanjay wrote:

I do realize that farm sprayer use quite a lot of pressure when spraying but it is an overhead spray. Bugs on the other hand lay their eggs on the underside of leaves to protect their eggs. My thought was that with this device we could spray from the bottom up and damage those hidden eggs. You might well be right on that topic anyway since it seems that nobody uses water spray for this purpose. Anyway, I would be interested in hearing about any non-chemical ways of dealing with potato beetles.

Lova Andriamanjay
Jardin chez Julie et Lova
Coteau-du-Lac, Quebec

I suspect that a hard water spray might be useful against aphids, as heavy rain can decrease aphid infestations. I doubt it'll do anything to beetles, though, at least unless it's also hard enough to significantly damage the plants. (For many agricultural pesticide sprays, it's necessary to cover the bottoms as well as the tops of leaves, as that is indeed often where the pests are; so such sprays are often not only overhead, but use nozzles that blow the spray up from underneath, or in sideways. Some sprays don't require direct contact with the pest, and those can be overhead only.)

Some strains of ladybugs will eat potato beetle larvae, but if you don't already have those strains you may not want to import them as they will compete with your native ladybugs, who may be better at dealing with other things. If they show up anyway, however, the potato beetles may mostly just disappear; I think that's what happened to them here. We rarely see more than a few potato beetles any longer -- and I grow not only potatoes, but eggplant.

On a small scale, I'd just handpick them. Either squash the larvae, eggs, and adults if you can catch them (they're much easier to catch than, say, flea beetles) using gloves if it helps against the yucch factor, or if even with gloves that's too much yuch pick them off and drop them into a container of soapy water.

On a larger scale, I used to occasionally use rotenone; but that's no longer permissible for organic use. I think it's still available for home gardeners; but I'd use it with somewhat more caution than the label indicates. And some beetle populations may have resistance to it. I really don't know what else can be used as our problem did decrease to the point where we just handpick when we do see a few, so I haven't kept up on this issue. Some people say that growing the potatoes in heavy straw reduces potato beetle problems; others don't see much difference from this. Row covers might help (the lightweight floating row covers that let air and light through). You'd have to put them on before the beetles found the crop; for potatoes, that would probably be before the potatoes come up. Putting row cover on after beetles are present doesn't work, they like it fine under there -- I don't know whether anyone's using row covers against potato beetles, but they are used against flea beetles.


-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale






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