dremmle
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caterpillar eating green beans (pics)

I harvested some green beans today for the first time and noticed a lot of them had holes in them. I scoured the plants and found this culprit!

What is this, and how do I keep them off my green beans?

sorry for the bad pics, they are very small!

[img]https://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h236/Danjim_photos/greenbean4.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h236/Danjim_photos/greenbean3.jpg[/img]

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gixxerific
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Good question I looked all over trying to find that searching for bean pest and found nothing that looked like that.

My neighbor is having problems with her beans, it would be nice to know what is getting hers as well as what is getting yours.

SaulsX
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Not an expert, but it looks like a gray hairstreak, or cotton square borer, caterpillar. I'd probably hand pick and relocate it, and any others you find, a good distance away from your bean plants/garden.

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gixxerific
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SaulsX wrote:Not an expert, but it looks like a gray hairstreak, or cotton square borer, caterpillar. I'd probably hand pick and relocate it, and any others you find, a good distance away from your bean plants/garden.
Nice call I would say the cotton square borer is a direct match.

https://www.organicgardeninfo.com/cotton-square-borer.html

[img]https://www.organicgardeninfo.com/images/cotton-square-borer.jpg[/img]

Tate
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dremmle wrote:I harvested some green beans today for the first time and noticed a lot of them had holes in them. I scoured the plants and found this culprit!

What is this, and how do I keep them off my green beans?
So I was out picking my green beans today and found 3 of these guys. I came inside did a google search and found this link and this incredible forum I never knew existed. What are the odds I would find the same caterpillar on the same day as you? I have never seen one of these in my garden before. I have only found them on the Contender variety of green beans. I have not seen one on my Derby variety so far. Out of curiousity what variety did you find them on?

Cheers,
Tate

Toil
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thats a cute caterpillar!

do they make the beans inedible?

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applestar
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I LOVE Gray Hairstreak Butterflies. I see them all the time around my butterfly garden. Now that I know what their larvae look like, I'll have to be sure not to squish them! :D

Hawthorn, Buckwheat, Lupine, and Mallow are also their larval food plants, as are Clover. So there are plenty of alternatives to move them to. :wink:

dremmle
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Tate wrote: So I was out picking my green beans today and found 3 of these guys. I came inside did a google search and found this link and this incredible forum I never knew existed. What are the odds I would find the same caterpillar on the same day as you? I have never seen one of these in my garden before. I have only found them on the Contender variety of green beans. I have not seen one on my Derby variety so far. Out of curiousity what variety did you find them on?

Cheers,
Tate
Welcome to the forum!

The ones I planted are Kentucky Wonder Green Beans.

They do not make the green bean inedible, but they do place nice little holes that tend to get infected or mushy.

Daniel

Tate
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dremmle wrote:
Tate wrote: So I was out picking my green beans today and found 3 of these guys. I came inside did a google search and found this link and this incredible forum I never knew existed. What are the odds I would find the same caterpillar on the same day as you? I have never seen one of these in my garden before. I have only found them on the Contender variety of green beans. I have not seen one on my Derby variety so far. Out of curiousity what variety did you find them on?

Cheers,
Tate
Welcome to the forum!

The ones I planted are Kentucky Wonder Green Beans.

They do not make the green bean inedible, but they do place nice little holes that tend to get infected or mushy.

Daniel
The final report is that I found about 7 of these after picking my first rounds of beans. I have 2 50 square foot areas of beans. One of the areas was all Derby variety and there were none of these in that bed. The other area had Contenders only on one side. The majority of the Cotton Square borers were found there. Maybe this is just coincidence, but I am going to only use the Derby variety from now on. It will be interesting to see if these guys show up again in my Fall crop.

Tate

Toil
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I think you would be wise to do 80/20, not all derby.

If you take away the preferred food, they just move down to the next preferable. Give them an outlet! (inlet?)

Tate
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You may have a point there, but I did all Derby last year and didn't have any.

Cheers,

Tate



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