These critters laughed at my Sevin .....

[gssgarden]

What are they? Saw them last year on my Black Cherry, this year they seem to have made a home on my Cardoon. They don't seem to do damage, but they stay around all year and buzz by your ear. They didn't seem to infest my whole yard but stayed close to the 'home' plant. How do I get rid off them.

Thanks,

Greg

I think they're smiling at me.

027.jpg

[HakaiRah]

They are a type of leaf footed bug: Here's a general overview

Here's the specific type: Leptoglossus phyllopus

Good luck taking care of these buggers, and make sure they stay away from your tomatoes!

[feldon30]

Stink Bugs and Leaf-footed Bugs both have a funny smell when you disturb or pick them up. I use a handheld vacuum cleaner to pick up as many as I can, but as it gets later in the season, there are too many. One thing you can do is grow some type of "trap crop" like Millet or some other plant that the stink bugs prefer to tomatoes, and then pick them up with a vacuum cleaner as mentioned. Densely planting your tomatoes provides a lot more places for the bugs to hide.

It is disturbing to hear that you are getting them so early. I am just starting to see them here and they will make every effort to ruin my tomato crop in the next couple of weeks. They bite the unripe or ripe fruit, sucking out the juice and leaving inedible corky spots behind. Here is a worst case scenario picture:


Stink Bug Damage

and here are the babies:


Leaf-footed Bug Nymphs

Last year I just let it be, but it was very frustrating to have still a fair amount of fruit on the plants but it was worthless. This year I have even more to lose with over a hundred tomatoes still on the vine that I want to harvest. So I'm turning to chemicals -- Ortho Bug-B-Gone Max specifically.

P.S. If you ever see what appears to be a stink bug all by itself, it may be a beneficial Assassin Bug.

[gssgarden]

Well, If spray can't help, I'll bring the shop-vac out back and go to town. Like I said, they seem to stick around one certain place so I hope that will make them easier to catch.

Thanks guys,

Greg

[Trice]

I just found the first of those critters in my garden about two days ago. I squash every one that I find. So far I have not used any insecticide at all, but I have to start now to try to get ahead. Most of my tomatoes are still about 2 weeks until they start to get ripe.

Early this spring, I killed hundreds of these bugs off my roses. I thought that maybe they would not bother my garden as bad since I found and killed all those so early...but I guess not.

Feldon, I did not know that those orange bugs were the babies of these awful stink bugs. I just found a whole herd of them on my Dad's tomato plants last weekend. We killed then and then he used Sevin....I'll go check his plants again this morning.

When we were younger, my husband worked as a logger. He said these bugs were all over the place in the woods where they would be logging. They called these bugs "Comicazi bugs" for the way they would just fly right into the windshields of the logging equipment and be smashed. Too bad....they didn't smash enough.

[duajones]

I have had decent luck this year using the Ortho product. I started early spraying the perimeter including brush in the alley, high weeds, shrubs and the lawn while avoiding plants such as esperanza to try and minimize the effect on beneficial insects. I lightly sprayed the plants on a couple of occasions and while I have seen a few nymps and adults, at this point the numbers are way down from last year at this point.

[bryanccfshr]

Being organic I have had to resort to rotenone and pyrethrin and even doc broners soap to try and control these fruit ruining suckers. The sad thing is I have a few wheel bugs and assasin bugs around but the populations are not adequate for control plus leaf footed bugs fly in from all around and lay eggs. Luckily I have plenty of surrounding plantings and landscape to provide nurseries for beneficials that I will never spray with indescriminate organic poisons.

This year I have had less damgage than ever, probably due to my regular spray schedule of Neem oil and Bonide gardendust with Copper and rotenone diluted into a liquid and sprayed.