Early Signs of Squash Vine Borer?

We put a pantyhose "band-aid" on our vines at the site of the cut. You can also put compost or dirt on them.

Yes, either wrap 'em or cover 'em. Or both, if possible. I've found that other bugs will go into the incisions and make themselves at home if you don't. The vines that survived the longest for me were the ones that I pushed back together, wrapped & tied with t shirt strips, and buried with soil.

And the ones that I got to early, when the borers were on the small side. That was a big dude you had there!

Unless you see the ants actually carrying out chunks of SVB, I'd try to close up the vine & discourage them. The less traffic in there the better.



This message was edited Sep 8, 2009 8:23 AM

My season's over. I managed to get some hubbards & sweet meats to ripen completely, and the butternuts were fine until the mildew set in & destroyed the leaves. So there's a good harvest of those. Since it wasn't a total loss, I'm calling it a draw this year. A hard won draw, LOL!

Oddly enough, my heirloom Yellow Crookneck "resisted" the borers well. I still have 3 plants going & producing. The zukes are long gone though.

One thing I've yet to do, is when it's time to clean up the dead vines and pull out the roots, I'm going to dig around in the soil at the base of the plants that had SVB damage and look for pupae. (Their hard shelled "coccoons" that they overwinter in.) Some may have made it to maturity, and if I can find & destroy any waiting to emerge next season, all the bettter.

I did that for squash vine borers and japanese beetles. Probably wouldn't hurt, though, if I get out there again at the end of the season and turn up the soil one last time.

My community garden is harvesting about a hundred small pumpkins this week. Only 200 more to go! Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen.

What the powdering mildew isn't getting, the squash bugs are eating up. Hundreds and hundreds of squash bugs and eggs, and they aren't doing a thing to deal with it. Next year will be an interesting season for them.

Ned- you had an awesome squash garden going there- well done.

Dividedsky- looks like your community garden group really had a "hands-off" approach to things. And you don't want to do this again? LOL!

Well, the days are getting noticably shorter and that leaves all of us with less daylight to get our gardening business done. I was like a madman this evening trying to inspect my plants and, of course, I found more SVB's in my buttercup squash. I ended up seeking and destroying three more of the buggers and my vines are looking more like mummies than plants right now. I wish they would just go away. Then the mosquitos just add to the mess when I am trying to take care of all of this, and they never seem to go away either. Anyway, I ran out of daylight so I did not get a chance to water my squash. They sure could use all the help they can get to heal and a good drink would do them some good. Honestly, I don't know how anyone can stay on top of all of this. Hopefully I will weather the storm and the SVB moths will return to wherever it is that they came from.

To add insult to injury, I had to watch "The Fresh Beat Band" on Nick Jr. during dinner this evening after all of this (my daughter *loves* them.)

The good thing is that I've got 4-5 buttercup squash in production right now so that is my potential reward. They're about 2"-3" "round."

This message was edited Sep 8, 2009 9:55 PM

One of the first 'signs' I've discovered is a yellowing of the stem of the plant or the leaf. We've found SVBs in the leaf stems of our pumpkins as well as in the stem of the plant itself. So frustrating!!

Agreed. This dawned on me in the last day or so. The SVB, I've found, are inside the part of the stem which appears "yellowish" as you mentioned, and the vine may be even a bit swollen. That's because they get big and fat while living the life of Riley inside my plants because I catch them too late. The area of the stem in which they reside looks stressed- you can see the vine "fibers" running lengthwise if that makes any sense, and this area might even be a white-ish color.

Thanks for the compliment there John. My garden is roughly 60 x 80 now, and will get bigger as I get more in the groove with growing our own.

Argh. Just when I thought it was over...! I went out and snipped dead stems and made piles for pick up with the tractor. When I turned over some of the squash, there were oozy holes! Even the butternuts, which was very exasperating. The final insult!

I have some squash bugs running around too, in various instar stages. From what I've read, only the adults will make it. A small consolation.

dividedsky- I don't suppose they'll do a last till and cover crop sowing to the community garden? If they just leave it- you're right, it will be an interesting season next year!

Next season I'm going to plant some gourds extra early, and try a "trap crop" with them. I don't have the layout to have them completely surround the other rows of squash (which is the best configuration) but maybe it'll help.

And I'll apply everything I've learned this season. And no more Hubbards. They're too attractive to the SVB, and too huge for easy storage. (LOL) I have about 10 or so, and I don't know where I'm going to put them!

And thanks everyone, for all your input. Next season is gonna be better!

This message was edited Sep 9, 2009 8:31 AM

60 x 80? That's bigger than a lot of people's houses! I'm sure it keeps you very busy.

I've mentioned cover crops and that sort of thing. It sounds like too much unnecessary work to them. I'm over it and done advising.

I think your trap crops could be pretty effective. I guess it all depends, though, on when the first squash vine borers mature and start laying eggs, though. This season, I didn't see any until mid-July, which is well into our growing season. But it was abnormally cool and rainy the months before that, so that was probably why.

I like the concept of a trap crop, but when it came to pulling my nasturtiums, I couldn't do it! Good thing someone recommended that I blast the aphids off with the hose. It takes a lot of heavy spraying, which beats the plants up, but it does get most of the aphids off.

I've seen a lot of people recommend Blue Hubbard as a trap crop.

Interesting. http://www.hort.uconn.edu/Ipm/veg/htms/sumsqshptc.htm

I was going out almost daily looking for eggs, scraping them off and destroying them, but I stopped because it was hard on the old back and it was hot out there! I've noticed a marked increase in the SVBs since I stopped doing that, so now I'm back to egg hunting.

Wow, 60 x 80 and still growing, huh? That'll keep you busy. I'll have to admit, though, that when I think of CT I do not think of beautiful rural areas. It's my ignorance, you see. I need to get out more. I guess I think that all of the NE part of the country is paved-over or something. My wife and I would love to travel that part of the country sometime during the fall and experience some real autumn weather and see all the beautiful leaves and stuff. Maybe in a couple of years.

Trap crops are an interesting idea. According to the link that dividedsky posted, this is feasible in a "small 20 x 20 garden" so I am in luck. This will take lots of planning and even more yard work but I think it will be worth it. Lots of food for thought...

I'm sure Blue Hubbard would work just fine as a SVB trap crop, LOL! It's a SVB magnet, alright! Oh, that's funny...

Actually, that gave me an idea to save the seed for trap cropping next season. I looked over that link (thanks/great stuff/Go UConn!) and even though it'll be a substantial loss of space, I may get bold & try a 4 sided Hubbard barrier. I'm sure I'll have enough seed for it. And if need be, we could bump out the garden plot a bit more. I'd love to get my hands on one of those Scentry Heliothis Traps (love the name). Apparently the scent lures are available online too- but like the ones for the Japanese Beetles, it's kinda a gamble using those. There's always the chance of attracting more than what you normally have...like the whole neighborhood's!

I understand completely about "advising" deaf ears, dividedsky! Nothing to be done about that. People think gardening is easy-until they get serious about it and discover that it's alot more work & takes more thought than expected. If you do it again next year, plant some buckwheat, yarrow & other good predator attracting plants...and cross yer fingers!

Stephanietx- I found a small mirror on the end of a telescoping rod thingy, I think that they're supposed to be used for examining car engines or something. They're cheap, expand to about 30 inches long, and might make your egg detection a bit less back breaking. Here's some examples- http://www.skygeek.com/mirror-magnifiers.html I got a real cheapie at a dollar store type place, in the car department. (It's not a magnifier though- you may need to pay a bit more for that.)

John: Even though we're a small state, (and have alot of spillover from NYC along the Gold Coast) we still have quite a bit of agriculture & rural areas left. Mostly towards the northeast & northwest. Certainly nothing like the miles & miles of it in TX, but there is some! We were very lucky getting this place in 2007. It was a seriously run down old strawberry farm, 10 acres in all. Some wetlands, a woodlot & 2 good sized fields. (And the garden is bigger than the house!) Although it's alot of work, we love it. And every day we are grateful that the housing bubble popped when it did- if the timing had been different, this place might have been snapped up by a developer and be a bunch of houses now... a horrible thought!

I tried a scent lure this year for the cucumber beetles, but it was a total waste.

The perimeter planting for a trap crop also requires that you use pesticides once the trap crop has attracted the pests, so that's not an option for organic growers.

LTilton~Did you find anything to eliminate the cucumber beetles? They seem to think my backyard is party central! I'd like to put a damper on the party, but we've tried several different things and nothing's worked so far.

The best thing I've tried is to pick all the cucurbit flowers at the end of the day, to get the beetles inside them. I REALLY wanted that lure to work!

Picking the squash and pumpkin blossoms at noon or so gets a lot of cuke beetles. Still, they showed up to eat corn silks on # 7and # 8 sweet corn. I had not seen very many until then.

Last fall I made a concerted effort to kill the squash bugs. I stamped them out in the remaining foliage and the unpicked squash and pumkins. This year I have seen about 3 adults and maybe that many juveniles and a few egg clusters. I have not seen anymore.

I did use Surround on the squash and also some Sevin on the squash stems earlier in the season. Really worked. Some zucchini are still producing and are 3 foot long now.

I spray the corn silks when the beetles show up. I swear they like the corn better than the cukes.

This is way too long to find out if what I have to offer has already been said, so here it goes, duplicate or not. For years I've read about how there's no way to get at a squash borer once it's in the plant, short of opening the stem and finding it. I found borer evidence at the base of a small plant - no way to slit it open without killing the plant. So I widened the spot where it had entered and stuffed it with bacillus thuringiensis. It seems to have done the trick.

LAS

I had heard that that could work, too, LAS, but never tried it. I'll have to experiment. The trick is to get the beastie before it completely does the plant in, though. Often I don't notice until the damage is done....Nice that it saved your squash!

I plan to use all the ideas put forth on this thread next year since I believe I'm the most squash deprived gardener in America thanks to the SVB.
I gave up on summer squash after planting about 6 times.

However, I am triumphant with 4 delicatas on 3 plants. The first time I've ever grown them and never tasted one yet. They are huge and I think they will finish before long. I should have had more but they never had many female flowers and when they did there was usually no male. One of them was attacked but, since they're running type plants, I just covered it at several leaf nodes and it kept going.

That's great, Twiggy! My delicatas succumbed long ago; I never thought about covering the leaf nodes to give it a second chance. I have several small squash from them but I don't know whether they were able to ripen enough to be edible. Any ideas on how I could tell?

Your squash should be edible. Even the youngest winter squash can be cooked and eaten just like summer squash. It may not taste like a fully mature delicata, though. And it may not keep like a fully mature winter squash.

"stuffed it with bacillus thuringiensis"

Stuffed how?

I tried injecting Thuricide using some very fine syringes that kept getting clogged or bent. When it "worked", it seemed the treatment was almost as harsh as the borer on the plant-the liquified worm would pool at a bend in the stem & then ooze out, weakening the area just as badly as if I had cut it. Sometimes worse.

That was incredibly gross, too! Dead borer goo. Ick. I had to clean up the spots, to dry them out to heal. Some plants rebounded, others not.

Maybe if you catch 'em early when they're really small it's not so bad....? I thought of dusting with ground up skeeter dunks, but I suspect that it's not the right strain of bt.

We use the liquid form using syringes. You do have to be careful when injecting and do it slowly or else you'll pop the stem. It's a very loud "POP!", too.

I'm about to be done in by the little devils, but my DH is very patient and persistent. He's set on getting some pumpkins off these vines. I told him last night I was ready to pull them all out!

I got some seeds from Baker Creek for a squash called Tatume. I think it is supposed to be used like a zuke when young and if left to mature it gets more like a winter squash. It's a runner type plant and the SVB killed all but one when they were babies. So I have the one plant running everywhere among tomatoes, cukes and tomatillos. It wants to take over the world and has started blooming like crazy but they're all male flowers.

I've read that cool weather causes mostly male flowers but there's no cool here yet. Does anyone know why this is happening? It seems to me that with the daylight shortening that the stupid thing would want to hurry up and try to make a fruit.

Dorothy, I grew Tatume too, and got some nice squash from them. I'm not sure whether the mature ones are edible or just useful for decoration, but I thought the young ones had a really good flavor. I'm going to try them again.

Maybe they're telling you that summer is over?

I still haven't tried the syringe method yet. I'm still fighting the SVB's to what appears to be a stalemate of sorts. I really need to do a better job of finding the eggs! Right now I am just reacting to the frass, then whipping out the razor and digging them out. My buttercup squash (all three of them) are taking a beating and I have only *1* squash that's nearing maturity. According to my log the fruit should mature on Oct. 8th...just need to hold on a little longer. I have more (younger) prospects since the vines continue to grow so we'll see.

My pumpkins/ mystery squash have weathered the onslaught pretty well. The base of the vines have been attacked and pretty much all the foliage by that area has been decimated, but the vines must have established roots elsewhere to make up for it. Pretty interesting.

There's no doubt, after this experience I will never complain about tomato hornworms.

Anyway, here are my pumpkins/ mystery squash. I got my 1st female flowers within the past 3-4 days so I am excited. I also have about 4-5 mystery squash growing. I'll have to post a pic somewhere in case someone can help ID it.

The SVB is a worm and it must eat the toxin for it to die. Otherwise your efforts are in vain.

John~The eggs are small, round, brown dots, about the size of a pin head. They're laid individually, not in a cluster or group. Look for them along the vine, leaf stems, and leaves. (Pretty much all over the darn plant!)

Thanks LAS14, for the clarification. Interesting technique, using Bt powder. I often squirted liquid Bt up & down inside the stem after surgery-especially if I couldn't find the worm!

With all the commercial implications of SVB, I'm very surprised that an effective systemic hasn't been developed. Not that I'm a big fan of pesticides, (not at all) but they've managed to find a way to introduce poison into the vascular system of other plants, why not for curcubits too?

My spouse wants to try using Tanglefoot next season, at the very vulnerable base of the plants. I'm thinking of mixing it with Bt powder too, just in case the egg manages to hatch on it, and the worm takes a bite on its way to the stem interior.

Informative link about Bt:
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/earthkind/ekgarden25.html

I didn't know exactly how it killed the larvae before. Apparently it's a gut pH thing. Facinating.

What a beautiful day!!! The temp has been in the high 70's/ low 80's and it's been sunny with blue skies all day! We even had the windows open. Fall's here, folks. LOL! Ok, I'm the last to know due to my locale.

We've received lots of rain in my neck of the woods and the heavy rains this morning (4-5 am) really pounded my plants. But, the rains ushered in the cool front that we are now enjoying. Best of all, I have a real pumpkin! Worst of all, more mosquitoes I'm sure. Gosh how I wish they would go away.

SVB has been curiously absent in my pumpkin (mini) patch as of late...

Also, what pestilence is this? Stink bugs?

Could be cucumber beetles. I *think* squash bugs go for the fruit rather than the leaves.

I have 3 baby pumpkins. My plants look like death warmed over, but they keep growing and keep producing babies, so I'm happy.

I tried to take a picture of the pests but no such luck with our small digital camera.

They do not appear to be cucumber beetles as described by the bug files, though. I'll describe the young bugs as being orange in color with thin, black legs. They hang out in groups and when you try and pick them off, they scatter and try and hide from you behind the stem. They're pretty funny little creatures. As they get older they turn black and have slender, sort of segmented bodies. Hopefully some of this will ring a bell but I really ought to try and capture one of these guys on camera....

This message was edited Oct 3, 2009 11:19 AM

Doesn't ring any bells. You could try going to www.bugguide.net and clicking the bug that looks the most similar on the left side of the page. You might find what you're looking for on that side.

Congrats on the growing pumpkins, Texans!

Thanks for the bug guide- that's pretty cool. It's just a matter of time now before I id this pest.