ChrisKil
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Location: Louisiana

Good or Bad Bug?

This is a small brown insect with a fluffy white puff on one end. It's fairly slow moving in general, but easily escapes being squashed by hand. I found it on a new cutting I brought home.

Photo: [img]https://christopherkilpatrick.com/graphics/bug/bug-id.jpg[/img]

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engineeredgarden
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Location: NW Alabama

Never seen that bug before, and I thought I'd seen them all. What is the host plant? That will probably narrow down the possibilities.

EG

ChrisKil
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Location: Louisiana

I think it started on some lantana cuttings. I picked up a piece of white fuzz yesterday and it jumped away and was lost. Today I saw the insect in the picture on some blue bonnets I have growing in a cup. I assume they are the same bug.

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Kisal
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That is the nymph of Acanalonia bivittata, a species of planthopper. Bad guys. They suck the sap of your plants. You can see images of the adults at this link:

https://www.cirrusimage.com/homoptera_planthopper_Acanalonia.htm

Acanalonia bivittata nymph
[img]https://www.cirrusimage.com/homoptera/woolly_something.jpg[/img]

Toil
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Hey why don't we go through the IPM steps? It's not an
"organic" thing, but if more "organic" people thought this way. we would have more beneficials and balance.

1)set action thresholds - we skipped this on the thread, doesn't mean you did
2)Monitor and Identify pests
3)Prevention
4)control


I think it would be really cool to go through those steps and talk about it. If you want to, that is.

ChrisKil
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Location: Louisiana

Kisal, Thanks for the ID.

Toil, I don't really know what you are talking about. I skimmed the posting guidelines. Please clarify if you're saying my topic/question didn't fit in the category or follow the general posting guidelines, etc.

I periodically run across insect that I can't identify, so I don't know if I need to control them in the first place (organically or otherwise).

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Kisal
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Chris, IPM stands for Integrated Pest Management. It's just a formalized way of saying that not every bug in the garden has to be eradicated. There's no problem with your post. :)

St. Louis gardener
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Location: St. Louis, Missouri

Hi all. I am in eastern Missouri, and have had the same insect in my gardens for several years. I think it likes euonymous, because both my neighbors have that growing on their sides of our shared fence, and in the past the vines were badly infested. This year I have seen this insect -- as well as a tiny, all-white variation that camouflages itself in the white silky web it leaves behind on the stems -- on my phlox, Ozark sundrops, coneflowers, potatoes and cukes. I have found that coming at them from both sides with open palms and squashing them against the stem they are on works better than trying to pick them off since they move very fast and hop quite far.

I have been vigilent this year about monitoring them and I believe I have a mild infestation. Given that, how can I control the ones I have this year (I will be going back to work full time soon, and will not be able to spend as much time in the garden as I do now), and prevent too much damage in future years?

Hope these are appropriate questions. Thanks for the ID, anyway.



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