Insect pests are not always pests; they can be our friends
Almost all insect pests in the garden have a natural control or enemy. Natural controls, used as an alternative to pesticides are not harmful to you, your family, your pets, your garden or the environment. These controls are also usually less expensive than chemical pesticides. Surprisingly, home-owners are reputed to use about three times the amount of pesticides used by farmers. Most of the toxic surface runoff in North America, which kills large numbers of wild insects, animals, and birds; comes from single-family homes. An efficient and natural way to cut down on pesticide usage is to utilize an insect versus insect control system.
Prevention
The first and easiest way to keep insect pests from setting up housekeeping in your garden is to discourage them from coming at all. A clean and healthy garden is your best defense. Remove all weak and spindly plants and all weeds and dispose away from the garden, preferably into your compost pile. Create healthy, organic soil. By utilizing natural compost methods such as mulching and top dressing your soil with compost or natural fertilizer,you will develop strong vigorous plants. Minimize insect habitat by clearing the garden area of debris and weeds. Use clean mulch when ever possible. By rotating crops and using
companion planting
methods, pests are much less likely to spread throughout your garden. Rotating crops each year is a common method to avoid re-infestation of pests which have over-wintered in the bed. Keep the foliage on your plants dry, water early in the morning so that the foliage be dry for most of the day. Wet foliage encourages insect and fungal damage to your plants. Drip irrigation and soaker hoses are excellent methods of watering your plot.
Beneficial Insects: THESE ARE NOT PESTS
There are certain insects which you will want to attract to your garden by planting particular vegetables or even buying from catalogs. Beneficial insect pests can be divided into three categories; predators,pollinators, and parasites. Pollinators such as bees and wasps, aid in the pollination of plants in your garden which is an essential task in a production of fruits and vegetables. Predators eat other insects, and parasites live upon the bodies or inside other insect pests which will eventually cause death. Ladybugs - Eat aphids, mites and other scaled insects. Attracted to: fennel, marigold, tansy and coriander. Can be purchased. Lacewings Used to control caterpillars, mealy bugs, aphids, spider mites and some moths. Attracted to: yarrow, dill, goldenrod, black-eyed susan, coriander and asters. Praying Mantis - Eat most garden pests. Can be purchased. Tachinid flies - Act as a parasite to other insects. They lay their eggs on the bodies of other insects and when the eggs hatch, the larvae burrow inside the insects body. Attracted to: parsley, tansy, and crimson thyme Predatory Nematodes - Effective against cutworms, beetles and root weevil larvae.Their seeds are mixed with water and applied to the soil. Can be purchased. Before releasing the insects into your garden, remember that you should wait about three weeks after you have used any chemical pesticides. Also release the insects in the evening as they are a lot more sedentary at that time. Before releasing insects be sure to water your plants as the insects are more likely stick around your garden if there is something to drink.
Destructive Insect Pests
There are three varieties of destructive insect pests, sucking, chewing and boring. Sucking insects will live on the plant saps, sucking the sap out and causing the leaves to turn yellow. Plant shoots me also wilt and curl. Chewing insect pests will leave holes in your leaves, flowers and fruits.Boring insects actually get inside the plants by boring in this stems or they create shallow tunnels into the leaves the fruits and roots. To differentiate insect and/or disease problems in your plants, there are symptoms to look for. Insects that eat plant material will leave holes in the leaves and also leave waste material near the plant. This waste material may be in the form of syrup, granules, sawdust like material or moist dark excreta. These symptoms are not seen with plant diseases. Some of the more common destructive insects are: Aphids/plant lice - tiny, soft bodied, usually wingless, their color ranges from pale green to black. Often not noticed until there very many upon the plants. Crops attacked; bean, broccoli, cabbage, cucumbers, white potato, muskmelons, squash, sweet corn, tomato, watermelon. Look for honeydew which is a clear sticky substance on the leaves and fruit which will turn black from mold growth, there will also be many tiny soft bodied insects. Blister beetles 1/2 to 5/8 inch long black, gray or striped soft winged beetles. Crops attacked; beans, white potatoes, tomato. Look for signs of chewing wilting and leaf burn. Cucumbers beetles 1/4 inch long, black and yellow spotted or striped. Crops attacked, Cucumbers, muskmelons, squashes, pumpkin, and watermelon. Look for holes in foliage, chewing flowers, scarred stems on fruit surfaces. These beetles may also carry a bacterial wilt that causes plants to wilt and die. Cutworms - up to 1 ½ inches long. Usually found curled up beneath the soil surface at the base of the damaged plant. Crops attacked; broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, eggplant, kohlrabi, pepper, sweet corn, tomato. Leafhoppers - up to3/8 inches long, green colored with a wedge shape. Crops attacked; bean, carrots, cucumbers, white potato, muskmelon. Look for curled or crinkled foliage edges on the leaves. Root maggots - tiny white legless worms found in tunnels in the underground parts of vegetables. Crops attacked; cabbage, onion, radish, rutabaga, turnip. Look for wilted are stunted plants with numerous brown or gray tunnels throughout the underground parts of the vegetable. Slugs - Snails without shells with a size up to 2 in. long. Shiny slimy soft legless ugly creatures. Crops attacked, most any vegetable. Look for the path of the slugs which is marked by a shiny mucous trail.
Return to home from insect pests
|
