They are Flea beetles
http://www.dpughphoto.com/images/chrysomelid%20beetle%20maybe%20durham%2041905.JPG
I have them too and they are doing the same thing, some of the plants look like they have been burned, they have taken all the juices out.
cut worm take over
I took more pictures but the cord to the camera must be in the other room (don't want to disturb DH who is trying to sleep.)
Cocoa_lulu, you asked if our chickens are free range. The answer is "sort of". They always have access to some part of the yard because of permanent and temporary fences. The permanent fence lets them go from their pen/coop area around the outside of the main vegetable garden (to keep the bermuda grass from invading the garden) to a large area around the peach trees. Then we have some temporary fences (take them down when DH mows) to let them in specific areas to hunt for bugs and eat fresh grass. Today I let them in the main garden after covering the young cucumber and melon plants with row cover. There are so many of these army worms that I need help getting them all. Even with all I'm doing to fight them, they killed a tomato plant yesterday.
Sorry your plants are getting attacked by those beetles Loonie1.
Podster, yep sometimes I have to keep weird hours. (When I'm up most of the night picking/drowning worms then I take a nap sometime during the day.) When we lived in Alabama I sometimes had to stay up at night to hunt slugs. I thought the slugs were bad, these army worms are worse. I can't tell if any of the other control methods (spraying, flour) are having an effect or not.
Has anyone else's area been invaded by boat tail grackles? The noisy flying vermin have taken over our neighborhood. Last year I saw two grackles pestering the robins that nest in a tree near our house. After a while they flew to the nest ate the robin's babies. When I saw that my DH got us a pellet gun.
I live with those grackles on a daily basis. I sat in my yard once, and was amazed at how noisy it was. All grackles. Then, they all took off and it was amazing to see how many flew out of just one tree.
Josephine, is this the same type of Beetle that is bothering your plants? So I should just ignore them and they'll be gone soon? I wonder why they're so bad this spring. Probably the mild winter and all the rain?
Carla
Yesterday, I could not believe I found one 'a those long ugly worms, dead, in a pool of water on my patio...just like the ones in your bucket...a grey cutworm...
Are those worms, in the container, army worms or cut worms?
last night I put my slug traps out caught about a dozen the first night hope to double up tonight..
Yes Carla, those are the beetles I have, plus the black flee beetle. I have them every year but it seems this year with the very mild winter and all the rains we are have more of everything.
This time I strained off the water and dumped the worm "harvest" on a white cloth so you can see them better. Are they army worms or black cut worms? I don't know. (Just know they eat a lot. )
A couple of questions for you Grits (and then we can let this thread die if ya'll want to - don't want to bore people with my worm problem)
What kind of slug traps do you use? And do you have toads and/or lizards where you live? (do they help with pest control?) There's not any toads or lizards around our neighborhood (at least we haven't seen any since we moved here.)
Ladypearl, there is nothing boring about your worms! We're all plagued with something at one time or another. I really want to see you get rid of them and not have the same issue next year. It's a good learning experience for us all. Perhaps, you could call your local Ag extension office and see if this is a county wide problem. They may have some recommendations for longer term control.
Carla, thank you for the photo. I've put a copy in my 'bad bug' file. Sorry, I'm of no help, like Josephine I get flea beetle damage, but not the guys your showing. Are they fast? I'd be tempted to thump as many as I could into soapy water or rubbing alcohol.
Lol I don't think any of us find this thread boring. It's really interesting. I smashed a stripped bug in my GH a couple days ago. Didn't realize it was a flea beetle. I found damage on only one plant, I sprayed some Neem Oil. Now I know what to look for.
Ladypearl the slug trap I use are as old as most of us they simply consist of a empty can of the size that cat food comes in or Tuna for that matter > bury them up to the rim in the ground/bed and add some beerabout 1/2" deep need to empty daily or they get to stinking real quick..I didn't empty mine this morning because I am just about out of beer and too lazy to go to the store you can also use some small pieces of raw potato around the area to help them find the beer but I don't do that part..We usually have lots of toads but hardly any Lizards as the fire ants proliferate so do the toads the population of each seem to be tied together ..Just an old country gardener"s observation ,another worrisome thought I am having is the use of my Spectracide One and Done I really do not know for sure what effects it may be having on the earthworms ..I am in the middle of an exp. to determine what if any is the downside of the Spectracide use Stay Tuned
Lisa, does the neem oil work on the flea beetles? It would be nice to stop them from destroying some of my plants.
Try this again http://www.ag.ndsu/pubs/plantsci/pests/e830w.htm Army worm= Pseudaletia unipuncta Haworth sunflowers draw them, Am still trying to find more info on wire worms (click beetle larvae).
Well I got curious and went reading up on flea beetles. Found this http://www.getridofthings.com/garden/pests/get-rid-of-flea-beetles.htm This article says yes, neem will work as well as other methods.
What I found interesting was the 'trap crop' information. I've never had grand success growing radishes but I keep trying as DH loves them. Well the last crop of radish tops was positively holey. After reading that article (and a couple other sites) I find radishes are a great crop to draw flea beetles away from other plants. Early on, I had noticed a few holes in the potato leaves and then it quit. I never did see the suspect but realize now that about when it quit was when the radishes that were planted in a neighboring bed had sprouted and were being molested instead. I also had a small planting of mustard that was destroyed by them. Articles indicate that bok choy, mustard and radishes act as flea beetle trap crops. If that is the case, I intend to keep interplanting small clumps of radishes on a repeated schedule and locating them throughout the garden beds during the balance of the season. Those seeds are cheap enough and as organic as it gets. Any thoughts?
The descriptions and pix of cutworms and army worms look alike to me- tho apparently a fall army worm is different, and some years are heavier than others, but these guys are always here, some of the info I read indicates there are conditions that can influence how we can help them be in our soil, by our gardening habits.
Radishes are what we plant as a ' nurse' crop and my radishes are holey too, it does work.
Are you killing them once they r drawn to the trap crop? It won't help if you just keep movin dinner around, nite guys, tired, they are comin after us this year for sure
I've heard about the beer traps and even tried it a couple of times (in Alabama where the slugs were terrible.) But sometimes the beer dried up before the slugs found it or it would rain and dilute the beer - it never was very successful at catching them. But then I was using a pie pan instead of a tuna can - that probably is the reason it didn't work. Do toads eat fire ants?
Well I have some good news. I went out this evening and found some of the caterpillars (army worms) in a state which I would describe as "mushy". I finished spraying four gallons of the Dipel mix just before dawn Monday morning - so it took 2 (or 2 and 1/2 days) to kill them. But I only sprayed the area around the garden, the garden itself, around the house and the flower beds (about 1 acre of area.) Since these boogers can really crawl, I'm going to keep looking for them to come in from the other parts of the yard. They wiped out my lettuce in three days even though I was picking them off it every day! (Don't want that to happen to the tomato and potato plants.)
Flea beetles also love egg plant plants so they would make a good trap crop for them.
Yep, I need to call the extension office and see what they have to say about how to keep the army worms away.
'Flea beetles also love egg plant plants so they would make a good trap crop for them. ' LOL my eggplants are what I was getting excited about protecting when I put them in the ground this season. I'm thinking a moat of radish greens around them.
No Kittriana ~ I hadn't killed them on the trap crop YET!!! I just figured out what was going on. I will in the future. Off to plant more radishes and sharpen my ice pick.
Hmmm Two questions first the beer traps Like you I started out using a pie pan and abandoned that soon enough as it took way to much beer which I had better uses for since switching to the smaller size can have much more luck with them.. As usually happens when the nights become very hot the slug problems will be lessened..Do toads eat fire ants I do not know I only know that I would move a board or something similar near a fire and mound and most always there woul be a toad under it ..Last year we did not have many fire ants due to a very severe winter with some sub zero temps and on a near identical ratio I had very few toads I always fix little toad houses for them and most remained empty ..Just kinda anticipating the next question I make the toad houses out of small clay pots or what ever is handy like a tin can and half bury it and cover with soil to help it stay cool .for what it's worth a board with a cavity left under it works great...
I don't think even anteaters eat fire ants, but like a chicken who will lay eggs under the bad dog house cuz they think their eggs will be safe, the toads don't disturb the fire ants so they are 'protected by them' a lot of toads have poisons in thier skin, dunno if the fire ants are affected or not
Uh, I wanna EAT my eggplants....Plan B...
Plan b radishes, sunflowers, there is info somewhere on companion planting and which bug prefers which plant...
Thanks, Kit!
The only problem I have found with the trap crop idea is that bug population continues to increase. And different stages do different damage. Like I mentioned before I let the cucumber beetles go and THEN I found out their larva eats the roots of other plants. So then another treatment is needed.
Personally I get tired of messing with them and want them dead. Once the trap crop has died they will move to another plant. The yr I let them go was when I let 75' of greens go to seed, the mix included radishes among other things. I fought the offspring for a year. I needed the space and when I pulled their dinner they just moved to my other plants the next fall all my spinach didn't have roots. I learned it was because the larva of the cucumber beetle were eating them.. It was a vicious circle that I'll never do again. Neem Oil worked well. I should have used it earlier.
Thanks Grits. Guess I need to find somebody with too many toads and rehome a couple to my garden.
Yep, planting an egg plant just for the flea beetles is kinda silly. But since the flea beetles like them so much, just thought you could use that to your advantage (to draw them away from other plants.)
I've heard planting garlic chives next to tomatoes helps the tomato plants be more disease resistant. Has anybody tried that.
I'm finding some healthy baby army worms on a few plants. Will have to spray everything again tonight (head this problem off before it gets out of control this time.)
I didn't know cucumber beetle larva ate roots! Thanks for the tip Lisa.
i HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY TOADS , crap didn't mean for the caps someone else has been using this keyboard ..I even kept water for them to lay eggs in and everything that I knew to do ..i do wish they were back..
perhaps the snakes ate them. I had lots of tree frogs last year and was forever fighting snakes off my front porch(where the tree frogs liked to hang out for some reason).
I really do not have an answer just know that in less than 2 years they were gone and I never see any snakes here ,I am gonna start a new thread about my insect EXP..
When it gets warm enuff you' ll start findin the toads again- they are still there
I have them too here, and I think they are cabbage worms.
Fat, no hair, about 1 inch long, come out more in the mornings and evening, and they are green inside (probably from MY plants lol)
My mom in MO says they have an invasion of tent caterpillars, which we used to refer to as army worms. (actually they aren't worms at all, they are caterpillars) but they are black and hairy, thinner, and maybe closer to 1 1/2 or 2 " long and make thick webs or nests in trees. Now it seems to me that there could be many common names for many worms and used interchangeably depending on where you are at. So without a photo and a formal name, it is hard to tell.
They seem to have a faint yellow or orangish pattern down the side of them, not a very pretty thing to look at by any means. They LOVE my marigolds and ate them clean to the ground. Then they ate my HOSTA and that meant WAR! so sevin it is. We shall see how it works. Funny, because the hosta is Stained Glass. It has a lovely pattern of holes in it...
FrillyLily, that sounds like the same kind of caterpillar we have had here. If I didn't go out and pick them every evening and night, and then let the chickens and guineas out to find them during the day, they would have eaten everything in my yard down to stems! And probably would have eaten the stems too. Thankfully, starting last Friday evening, I have hardly seen any of them (caterpillars). But they are not gone, just pupating in the soil. Now I am cultivating the flower beds, under bushes, veggie garden, etc, and collecting the pupa and feeding them to the chickens (I'm hoping to not have a large second generation of these monsters!) I also squish every one of those ugly brown moths that they turn into when they come to the porch lights at night. (Where are my orb weaver spiders when I need them???)
I don't know if Sevin will have any affect on them - would be interested to know if it works for you though. Early on in the invasion I tried sulfur dust on the potato plants and it didn't seem to bother them much. The Dipel spray (Bt ) takes about two or three days to actually kill them (and they can eat a lot in that time) but at least it did kill the ones I missed picking.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I put out bait (corn meal since that is what I had on hand) for them but don't know if it actually killed any. I would go to all the spots and collect the worms that were eating it.
As mentioned in another thread, webworms or tent worms aren't actually cutworms, but self rising flour is candy to the cats, and fatal as well. We burn those worms cuz they return to the webs at dark- gets the most at once, army worms are climbing cutworms, no fuzz, green thru gray and become mostly miller moths, tomato hornworms and their kin turn into hummingbird moths- sphinx moths,
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/army-worms-nest
here is a pic of an army worm or also called a tent caterpillar.
I think the sevin dust will kill whatever they are, or well, not kill them per-say, but deter them from eating the plants. May kill the ones actually ON the plants when I spray, but I am hoping it will prevent more from coming on them.
I have seen alot of 1 inch gray-brown ugly moths around my plants as well. I bet they are out preparing next year's batch!
I do like to see hummingbird moths in the evenings around my plants though.
Well Kitt I don't know if the toads are coming back or not we had such a long cold winter in 2011 which came on the heels of a warm fall ,methinks I will need to siene me some tadpoles from someones pond and even if I get frogs I will still be the winner