Stink bug

[leedb8]

Hi can anyone tell me how to kill stink bugs, thanks

[saltmarsh]

Probably the easiest and surest way is to buy a couple of small flakes of gold and then with a look of amazement and wonder tell your neighbors you were killing stink bugs and found this inside. Claud

Forgive me Jesus.

[feldon30]

Originally Posted by leedb8

Hi can anyone tell me how to kill stink bugs, thanks

The only thing I haven't tried is nuclear weapons.

Stink bugs and Leaf-footed bugs laugh at neem oil, pyrethrin, insecticidal soap, or basically anything organic.

Ortho Bug-B-Gon Max (Bifenthrin) is a broad spectrum chemical insecticide which is effective, but it's not even close to organic.

Three suggestions:

• Increase plant spacing. Stink bugs and Leaf-footed bugs hide in the most dense foliage of your plants.
• Grow trap crops like Millet.
• Go out early in the morning when bugs are less active/slow to move with a Dustbuster or other portable vacuum and collect all you can.

[kurt]

Friends in Pa(western)have been fighting them since they showed up from eastern PA.All you can do is vacum them up(they bought a designated vacum).They went and closed up all and EVERY opening so they cannot overwinter IN thier house.That includes screening the toilet vent pipes on roof caus they will come in and swim through the p traps in plumbing and show up in bathrooms.They have tried everything and nothing seems to work.They know now that somehow nature will take it couse and come up with some kind of predator solution.They have not put up a garden for two years now so as to let the bugs outlive thier food source and hopefully move on.They came in from some kind of shipment in eastern Pa and moved on since and is coming.

[coastal bend]

You can kill them with pyrethrin , orthene and malathion. Problem is if there is a heavy migration of stinkbugs you can't keep up. You kill what is on the plants at the time but a hour later some more have moved in. Last week I sprayed Spinsoad for worms and the next morning there were 2 dead stinkbugs laying under the plant. Not saying that is a good control for stinkbugs but they were dead. They are a problem down here in South Texas and even in the drought we are in a few showed up in the tomatoes but not bad. If they are bad it is hard to get control of the problem.

[lakelady]

Originally Posted by kurt

Friends in Pa(western)have been fighting them since they showed up from eastern PA.All you can do is vacum them up(they bought a designated vacum).They went and closed up all and EVERY opening so they cannot overwinter IN thier house.That includes screening the toilet vent pipes on roof caus they will come in and swim through the p traps in plumbing and show up in bathrooms.They have tried everything and nothing seems to work.They know now that somehow nature will take it couse and come up with some kind of predator solution.They have not put up a garden for two years now so as to let the bugs outlive thier food source and hopefully move on.They came in from some kind of shipment in eastern Pa and moved on since and is coming.

I heard they initially arrived here through an imported shipment from China at the port of Philadelpha. My 19 year old insists its a plot by the Chinese to cut off our food supply , lol....

I found a lot of them this winter in the attic and garage. I think I'll probably be wrapping my tomatoes in reemay or something as they start becoming ripe. At least I'm hoping that will work. They are pretty gross. Actually have not seen any in a few weeks, so I'm hoping it's not the calm before the storm !

[coastal bend]

I have read about them. That is a different type than the ones we have down here. the stinkbugs we have have always been here but for some reason there numbers have increased and have become a problem for the cotton farmers and gardeners around here. Three years ago they were so bad that they wiped out the tomatoes . The numbers were so great that you would have to cover the fruit for them to survive.

[Dewayne mater]

I have 3 Texas native ash trees that for some reason they LOVE. I go out at night and will see at least hundreds if not thousands of them on each tree trunk and the wood fence next to it. I have squished more stink bugs than you can imagine these last 2 years (didn't have them before that) and no matter how many I kill, there seem to be more than there were the next day. The numbers are incredible. And they live up to their name when you squish them.

The only thing I haven't seen mentioned in this post so far and I think I remember Suze saying was that kaolin clay was a pretty good deterrent. Makes your plants and fruit look awful like they just lived through a West Texas mud storm, but, it is a completely enviro friendly method that might be worth trying against this enemy-less invading hord.

Dewayne mater

[kath]

Originally Posted by Dewayne mater

I have 3 Texas native ash trees that for some reason they LOVE. I go out at night and will see at least hundreds if not thousands of them on each tree trunk and the wood fence next to it. I have squished more stink bugs than you can imagine these last 2 years (didn't have them before that) and no matter how many I kill, there seem to be more than there were the next day. The numbers are incredible. And they live up to their name when you squish them.


Dewayne mater

I know there are many varieties of stink bugs but in researching the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug that we have here in PA, I found a claim that squishing them attracts others. It was then that I stopped using a fly swatter to squish the ones that gathered every day on our house and outbuilding.

kath

[Dewayne mater]

Kath - can't help it! Before I killed the first one, there were many hundred if not thousands of them and they were creeping all around my backyard like a science fiction horror movie! They must die! Far as I know, I am there only known enemy in America. ;-)

When you stopped swatting them, did they all go away?

Dewayne mater

[snappybob]

For the two previous years I had been going out to the garden in the late afternoon with a wide mouth cup filled with water and dawn dish soap. When I saw a stink bug or a group of them on a tomato I would put the cup underneath them and my hand above them. They would jump away from my hand into the cup of soapy water and die. It's kind of tedious but it works. If you start early and vigilantly you can control the numbers for a long time. This year I tried just loading a hand held spray bottle with a very soapy solution and going stink bug hunting. That has worked even better. I only have around 25 plants so for larger plantings it becomes less practical unless you can employ teams of stink bug hunters. Does this sound like a good reality show? "The Stinkbug Hunters of Tomatoville".

I heard the same thing as Kath about squashing them. I never squash anymore.

[kath]

Originally Posted by Dewayne mater

Kath - can't help it! Before I killed the first one, there were many hundred if not thousands of them and they were creeping all around my backyard like a science fiction horror movie! They must die! Far as I know, I am there only known enemy in America. ;-)

When you stopped swatting them, did they all go away?

Dewayne mater

Trust me, they have many enemies and no, they didn't all go away. The residue from the squishing was supposed to last for months so I just started flicking them into a rectangular container with soapy water in it. (They make the container stinky so if anyone tries this method, don't plan on using the container for anything inside your house ever again.) I spent many hours going around and around the house and our shed filling up a container and setting it aside until they were all drowned; filling up the second container and set aside; dumping out the first container; repeat.

It made me feel better to kill them and I couldn't leave them there to crawl inside our attic and shed to spend the winter but I don't have much confidence that I'll see reduced numbers this year.

kath

[kath]

Originally Posted by snappybob

This year I tried just loading a hand held spray bottle with a very soapy solution and going stink bug hunting. That has worked even better. I only have around 25 plants so for larger plantings it becomes less practical unless you can employ teams of stink bug hunters. Does this sound like a good reality show? "The Stinkbug Hunters of Tomatoville".

When they are knocked off the plant by the soapy water, do they die? When going around holding my container I had to keep an eye on the cup because some of them would climb on the bodies of fallen comrades and attempt to climb up the side and escape!Flicking the side of the container was enough to knock them back down and by that time they seemed too weary to try it again.

kath

[bcday]

The feed/hardware/garden supply store here sells stinkbug traps. But if the traps work on the same principle that Japanese beetle traps do, I wouldn't want to put it on my own property, lol. Haven't had a stinkbug problem here so far, knock on wood.

[horses4jess]

I gave up and began bagging my clusters last year when I started tossing out a significant number of tomatoes to stinkbug damage. Pyrethrin helped keep the numbers down, but not for long. Thank goodness tulle is cheap! Though not practical for large-scale operations, it was effective enough as a salvage effort for my garden.