Sacrificial Plants?

[WildLife]

Hello,
I am curious about having an extra plant
to give harmful bugs a place to go.
I would misstreat said plant to "weaken"
it, and hopefully making it appealing to
bad bugs. Is there any research or testing
on this issue? Are there specific plants religated to this
function?
Wild "pipe dream?" Life

[markferon]

I doubt you could encourage bugs just to attack that plant.
I doubt it would realistically work no matter what some may say .

[michael johnson]

I should say that if you grow an egg plant (Aubergine ) in the same greenhouse or even outside, 99% percent of the bad bugs including whitefly would make a beeline for the egg plant and leave the others alone.

[travis]

A very sweet Italian frying pepper will attract a lot of bugs due to its high Brix.

I agree about the eggplant as well. Sap suckers love'm.

And I had a Cherokee Purple last summer that attracted a huge percentage of the Colorado potato beetles and white flies ... a very significant number more than any other tomato in the garden. It would be swarmed with bugs in the morning like they used it for an overnight clubhouse or something.

I ended up spraying the CP with Sevin and insecticidal soap a couple of times a week for two weeks and that wiped out the bug infestation for the rest of the tomatoes and greatly reduced the infestation on the cucumbers. And I sacrificed two eggplants to the flea beetles. I didn't have to spray but that one CP tomato plant.

I'm a big proponent of using one or two bug magnet plants rather than spraying the entire garden with all kinds of homemade gunk or expensive store-bought tree-hugger remedies ... and no, I don't eat anything off the plant I spray with insecticides ... even Sevin. I got enough of all that poison workin' in cotton in MS and tobacco in N.C.

PV

[WildLife]

Hi,
That is great info, I am going to add
Eggplant to my grow list. I am not familiar
with EggP, is there a type I should look for?
Thanks very much for replying!
Wild "one more plant" Life

[landarc]

Wild,

You might want to ask that question in the eggplant forum. There are a few recommendations there already with comment. I will say that I like the small dark purple Japanese eggplants.

Bob

[Mantis]

Might try a potted eggplant in my greenhouse next spring. Thanks for the idea. I dont like eggplant so its loss will be its own

[Althea]

This info from ATTRA has a section on "mulches and trap crops" that may be helpful.

http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/farmscape.html

The companion planting section has been very useful to me.

I have celandine poppies growing in abundance throughout the gardens. Last summer almost all of the plants were covered with white flys late summer. I paniced, sprayed the poppies with soapy water and removed a bunch of them fearing the white flys would move on to other plants. The white flys didn't leave the poppies even for roses. I thought I would remove any celandine poppy as soon as they start to come up this year, but finding they are a preferred host for white flies, I think I'll just leave them.