Controlling Colorado potato Beetle
I enjoy gardening and plant potatoes. Every year I have colorado potato beetle and haven’t been able to get rid of them. I’ve tried picking them off, different sprays, and dusting products, but they lay eggs under the leaves and it won’t kill them — they multiply quickly and destroy the plant. Is there any preparation product that I can include in the soil or any product you know of that will do the job? Thanks, V.B., Racine.
It may be that you need to alter your growing area or the timing of your control methods in order to get this colorado potato beetle under control. Since you have had problems with it in the past, the first thing I would recommend is to not plant potatoes in the same location. Rotating crops in the vegetable garden is always a good idea. In addition to not planting potatoes, don’t plant anything in the nightshade, or Solanaceae family, in the old potato location. That includes eggplants, tomatoes and peppers. These plants are all closely related and will be food for the beetle, allowing it to produce another generation of insects for next year.
Other cultural controls for Colorado potato beetle include covering the plants with floating row cover. Floating row cover is a lightweight synthetic material that allows sunlight and rain to penetrate to the developing potato plants, but not the insects. If eggs of the colorado potato beetle are already present on your plants though, covering them will only allow the insects to develop under a protective cover.
An additional method is to clear weeds and plants around your garden that may harbor the adult colorado potato beetle. Typically adults overwinter in the soil on the edges of the potato growing area, so trenching around the potato area and lining the trench with plastic to keep the adults from getting to your new little potato plants to lay their eggs is a cultural control that works for many organic growers. They also use flaming and large vacuum devices to take care of these adults; organic gardening can be quite exciting.
We have a great publication on the colorado potato beetle available on the UW-Extension publications website at http://learningstore.uwex.edu/assets/pdfs/A3678.PDF that explains how to determine the insect growth stage and details the different methods to control the colorado potato beetle depending on that stage. The adult female (that crawled into your garden after overwintering) will lay clusters of bright yellow-orange eggs on the undersides of the leaves in the spring, about the time the first leaves are appearing on the newly emerging potato plants. Depending on how warm it is, the larvae hatch in seven to nine days and start eating. It is difficult to see them when they are young, and they don’t do much damage, but this is the stage when they are the easiest to kill. Their growth and development is temperature dependent; as they get bigger and easier to see, their damage is more extensive and they are harder to kill.
If caught in the early stages, an organic toxin called Bacillus thuringiensis tenebreonis, or Btt, will kill them. If they are larger, a different type of pesticide may need to be used. Consider an insecticide labeled for potatoes containing permethrin or cyfluthrin for the bigger colorado potato beetle larvae; but read the label carefully first and make sure you are purchasing the formulation suitable for colorado potato beetle. By following label directions and applying as directed, you should be able to keep the beetle larvae from destroying your potatoes.
Many publications and fact sheets on growing vegetables, scouting and controlling insects, and managing diseases can be found on our UW-Extension Wisconsin Horticulture website at http://hort.uwex.edu.
More questions?
Master gardener volunteers serving as plant health advisers are also able to answer your questions at [email protected] or (262) 886-8451 at the Racine Horticulture Helpline. More gardening tips and updates can be found on Facebook; search for Patti Nagai and/or Racine Community Gardens.
Dr. Patti Nagai is the horticulture educator for Racine County UW-Extension. Submit your questions for The Journal Times QA column to Dr. Nagai at [email protected] and put “Question for RJT” in the subject line.
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