Need a effective cure for Leaf Footed Bugs...

[gssgarden]

STAT!! These things have taken over!! Grrrr.....

I want to salvage what I have left. I picked most of the semi-red/orange toms but they moved over to the peppers!!

What has worked best for you??

Thanks in advance,

Greg

[b54red]

I so far have not had the pleasure of dealing with this pest but I have read up on it a little and it sounds like it is hard to kill. I read that using a 10% Permethrin product at the rate of 1/4 to 1&1/2 oz to the gallon will kill them. That is pretty strong and I don't know what the wait time is but I would think it would be from a few days to a week to be safe. I have also read it is good to use a spreader sticker to make poisons more effective against them. They sound like a nightmare.

Bill

[saltmarsh]

Originally Posted by gssgarden

STAT!! These things have taken over!! Grrrr.....

I want to salvage what I have left. I picked most of the semi-red/orange toms but they moved over to the peppers!!

What has worked best for you??

Thanks in advance,

Greg

I don't use any insecticides in the garden; normally just a garlic, red pepper and sage tea to confuse and repel the insects. That doesn' t have any effect on the leaf- footed bug or other stink bugs. I've been searching for years for a solution.

This year I tried this product on the garden. To find if it was working, I didn't use anything else, not even the garlic, red pepper and sage tea. I don't have any association with the company and haven't tried any of their products before this year.

I chose the product because of its Bacillus pumilus content for cucumber beatle control.

I didn't follow label directions and use it as a soil drench.

I used a meat marinade injector to inject 2 oz. of solution into the root ball of transplants. This was used on tomatoes, peppers and eggplants when they were planted out.

I also used it on Watermelons and Cantaloupes. On these the ground was opened for each hill of seed; seed put in place and 1/4 cup of solution poured on top of the seed; then the seed were covered with soil. When the plants had their first true leaves, the hills were thinned to the two strongest plants and another 1/4 cup of solution was poured at the base of the plants (1/8 cup per plant).

My results: It does an excellent job of repelling cucumber beatles on everything.

It worked surprisingly well at repelling leaf-footed bugs and other stink bugs except for the small green stinkbugs on tomatoes (I normally found 2 or 3 of the green ones on 250 tomato plants during the morning walk throughs.) I'd call that pretty effective control.

It doesn't repel flea beatles or Colorado Potato beatle from eggplant, but the potato beatles didn't get on the tomatoes like they normally would.

It has no effect on cutworms or horn worms. (However, the horn worms growth seemed stunted and they displayed poor appetite.)

It is effective on aphids on tomatoes. A few varieties of tomatoes had a few but they never became a problem.

Next year I intend to use it on everything along with my usual spray of teas.

Not scientific I know, but I'm satisfied. I used 1/2 of a 4 oz. bottle and inocculated everything I planted. At $9 plus shipping that's a lot of bang for the buck.

To make the solution, I added 1 teaspoon of the powder to 2 liters of nonchlorinated water. It should be used within 12 hours of mixing. Claud

http://www.greenviewfertilizer.com/s...ch-P91C13.aspx

[b54red]

After reading your post about the leaf footed bugs I couldn't believe I didn't have any because every bug that can mess with tomatoes seems to appear around here at one time or another so I went out and did a close inspection while tying up some plants. I didn't find any on my tomato plants but did find some in my bell pepper bed so I tried the strong Permethrin spray I had read about. I'll give it a few days and check and see if they have diminished or gone and let you know if it works. Maybe the reason there were none I could find on my tomatoes is because of the application of food grade DE to all of my tomato plants in an effort to stop spider mites. I guess next time I spray DE on my tomatoes I'll go ahead and put it on my bell peppers also. Maybe it will help with the sun scald problems I am having on them like it did on the tomatoes.

Bill

[ernie85017]

Originally Posted by saltmarsh

I don't use any insecticides in the garden; normally just a garlic, red pepper and sage tea to confuse and repel the insects. That doesn' t have any effect on the leaf- footed bug or other stink bugs. I've been searching for years for a solution.

This year I tried this product on the garden. To find if it was working, I didn't use anything else, not even the garlic, red pepper and sage tea. I don't have any association with the company and haven't tried any of their products before this year.

I chose the product because of its Bacillus pumilus content for cucumber beatle control.

I didn't follow label directions and use it as a soil drench.

I used a meat marinade injector to inject 2 oz. of solution into the root ball of transplants. This was used on tomatoes, peppers and eggplants when they were planted out.

I also used it on Watermelons and Cantaloupes. On these the ground was opened for each hill of seed; seed put in place and 1/4 cup of solution poured on top of the seed; then the seed were covered with soil. When the plants had their first true leaves, the hills were thinned to the two strongest plants and another 1/4 cup of solution was poured at the base of the plants (1/8 cup per plant).

My results: It does an excellent job of repelling cucumber beatles on everything.

It worked surprisingly well at repelling leaf-footed bugs and other stink bugs except for the small green stinkbugs on tomatoes (I normally found 2 or 3 of the green ones on 250 tomato plants during the morning walk throughs.) I'd call that pretty effective control.

It doesn't repel flea beatles or Colorado Potato beatle from eggplant, but the potato beatles didn't get on the tomatoes like they normally would.

It has no effect on cutworms or horn worms. (However, the horn worms growth seemed stunted and they displayed poor appetite.)

It is effective on aphids on tomatoes. A few varieties of tomatoes had a few but they never became a problem.

Next year I intend to use it on everything along with my usual spray of teas.

Not scientific I know, but I'm satisfied. I used 1/2 of a 4 oz. bottle and inocculated everything I planted. At $9 plus shipping that's a lot of bang for the buck.

To make the solution, I added 1 teaspoon of the powder to 2 liters of nonchlorinated water. It should be used within 12 hours of mixing. Claud

http://www.greenviewfertilizer.com/s...ch-P91C13.aspx

Sorry for the long quote. I am trying to get an answer from this 2015 post from saltmarsh. The product she is talking about is Biopak, which seems to be similar to a mycorrhizae product, with beneficial bacteria as well. I don't understand how using this as a soil drench, or any other way, would kill leaf footed bugs.

Saltmarsh, if you are out there, please help. Anyone who knows how this works, please help.

[Lindalana]

Saltmarsh, thanks for sharing your results! Def putting on my list to try. I have little bug problems but adding more microbes to compensate for soil practices is my issue with community gardens. There is usually a reason why bad bugs come and in my view it should be taken in account as wider problem.

[rjake100]

My garden was full of leaf footed bugs this summer. I've got some fields of really tall weeds adjacent to my garden. Those fields harbored a never ending supply of leaf footed bugs. Insecticidal soap will kill them on contact (adults and juveniles). They like to gather on my sunflower heads in the afternoon which made it pretty easy to come by and destroy 20 to 30 of them each day after work. I just had to find which sunflowers were host to that day's gathering.

I had a never ending train of leaf footed bugs coming into the garden, so my frequent soap massacres were not enough.

I ordered these 6x8 bags late in the season. I wrapped up 2 or 3 tomatoes in each bag, and when the redness was shining through I unwrapped a damage free tomato. http://www.ebay.com/itm/221355941156 I noticed they are out of the 6x8s. I would search for something similar or use a smaller size and put wrap one tomato in each bag.

I'm guessing this works against pretty much anything trying to eat your tomato (sentient beings excluded).

[b54red]

The Permethrin spray seems to have wiped them out for now. I went out and checked this morning and was going to apply DE but it was too wet to spray after a light rain last night so I'll wait til they dry out and try again either later today or tomorrow. I did take the time to remove all the bells that had any sun scald showing up on them so after applying the DE I will be able to tell if it helps with sun scald on peppers like it does on tomatoes.

Bill

[b54red]

The Permethrin and the following DE spray seems to have really put a whoa on the leaf footed bugs and my bells are looking so much better. Hand watered this morning and while doing this I carefully checked for leaf footed bugs and didn't find a single one.

Bill

[b54red]

The Permethrin spray and the follow up with a heavy dose of DE has kept both the leaf footed bugs and stink bugs off my peppers and as a result my plants are so much nicer looking and the fruit is not spotted from their stings.

Bill

[tarheelchick]

Originally Posted by rjake100

My garden was full of leaf footed bugs this summer. I've got some fields of really tall weeds adjacent to my garden. Those fields harbored a never ending supply of leaf footed bugs. Insecticidal soap will kill them on contact (adults and juveniles). They like to gather on my sunflower heads in the afternoon which made it pretty easy to come by and destroy 20 to 30 of them each day after work. I just had to find which sunflowers were host to that day's gathering.

I had a never ending train of leaf footed bugs coming into the garden, so my frequent soap massacres were not enough.

I ordered these 6x8 bags late in the season. I wrapped up 2 or 3 tomatoes in each bag, and when the redness was shining through I unwrapped a damage free tomato. http://www.ebay.com/itm/221355941156 I noticed they are out of the 6x8s. I would search for something similar or use a smaller size and put wrap one tomato in each bag.

I'm guessing this works against pretty much anything trying to eat your tomato (sentient beings excluded).

This looks like something that might be helpful in my garden! Maybe I could even use it next year to protect young squash from getting infested with worms? Do I understand correctly that the fruit (tomato) will continue to receive enough sunlight even if its wrapped up in this muslin cotton bag?

[ernie85017]

Originally Posted by rjake100

My garden was full of leaf footed bugs this summer. I've got some fields of really tall weeds adjacent to my garden. Those fields harbored a never ending supply of leaf footed bugs. Insecticidal soap will kill them on contact (adults and juveniles). They like to gather on my sunflower heads in the afternoon which made it pretty easy to come by and destroy 20 to 30 of them each day after work. I just had to find which sunflowers were host to that day's gathering.

I had a never ending train of leaf footed bugs coming into the garden, so my frequent soap massacres were not enough.

I ordered these 6x8 bags late in the season. I wrapped up 2 or 3 tomatoes in each bag, and when the redness was shining through I unwrapped a damage free tomato. http://www.ebay.com/itm/221355941156 I noticed they are out of the 6x8s. I would search for something similar or use a smaller size and put wrap one tomato in each bag.

I'm guessing this works against pretty much anything trying to eat your tomato (sentient beings excluded).

I tried these bags last year. At the end of the season I found dead LFB's INSIDE the bags. Some were still alive. My fruit was still ruined. I don't understand how a bug that size could crawl in through the neck of a bag tightly closed. It also appeared they "poked" the fruits through the bag. LFB's are truly evil.

[Zenbaas]

Originally Posted by b54red

After reading your post about the leaf footed bugs I couldn't believe I didn't have any because every bug that can mess with tomatoes seems to appear around here at one time or another so I went out and did a close inspection while tying up some plants. I didn't find any on my tomato plants but did find some in my bell pepper bed so I tried the strong Permethrin spray I had read about. I'll give it a few days and check and see if they have diminished or gone and let you know if it works. Maybe the reason there were none I could find on my tomatoes is because of the application of food grade DE to all of my tomato plants in an effort to stop spider mites. I guess next time I spray DE on my tomatoes I'll go ahead and put it on my bell peppers also. Maybe it will help with the sun scald problems I am having on them like it did on the tomatoes.

Bill

Bill how do you apply the DE to the tomato plants?

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Zenbaas

Bill how do you apply the DE to the tomato plants?

I pour about 2/3 cup of DE into a gallon jug, add water and shake well, then strain onto sprayer. I then add a tablespoon of dish washing liquid and a bit of permethrin then add enough water to bring the total volume of liquid to a full gallon. I then spray all parts of the plant and occasionally shake the sprayer.

Bill

[b54red]

I sprayed all my plants again with the DE and permethrin solution because the leaf footed bugs came back big time the last few weeks. I know it is nearing the end of the season but I didn't want them laying eggs or overwintering so maybe I will have less of them next year. It also kills off most of the stink bugs at the same time. It rained heavily only a few hours after I sprayed so I don't think I am going to get any benefit from the DE but I am going out to pick tomatoes, peppers and beans today so I'll check on the pest population and see how much damage the permethrin did to them.

Bill