Eggplant Pests - Possibly CPB or FPB?

[stephenmathieson]

Hello gardening people,

I've got a problem. I'm fairly new to gardening, and haven't ever come across a pest problem this bad.

I've got a few eggplants growing in my garden. They're all doing very well and are beginning to fruit. Their leaves, however, are being eaten by some savage beasts! Some a few Google searches have told me that they may be colorado potato beetles or false potato beetles. Either way, I want them gone!

Here's what they look like...

[img]https://www.stephenmathieson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/eggplant-thieves.jpg[/img]

I'm checking my plants a few times a day and plucking them off and feeding them to my fish. I would, however, like a more permanent solution for their demise. Does anyone know a safe way of removing them?

[Bobberman]

No probem with mine yet and they are really tall! I am going to spray them with garlic and and tomato lea mix tomorrow. I will let you know how it works! I am only going to spray it on two of my 10 plants! Those little buggers look like good fishing bait! Grow a acre of plants and make more money selling the bettles! Those bettles wee not humming I want to hold your hand were they?

[rainbowgardener]

I'm not sure it is the colorado potato beetle. Pictures of adult and juvenile of those are here:

https://www.ent.uga.edu/veg/solanaceous/colorado.htm

The false potato beetle does look a lot like the "real" one, meaning the juveniles of that one are also orange:

[url=https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=false+potato+beetle+larvae+pictures&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8]false potato beetle images[/url]

So I'm not sure what you have, but certainly something in the same general type, which means control methods would be similar.

Here's an article:

https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/coloradopotato.html

Here's an excerpt from that:

The generalist predators—ladybird beetles, lacewings, predatory stink bugs, spiders, etc.—provide some control ...Increasing habitat for natural enemies by providing pollen and nectar sources along field borders or by planting insectary strips in the field can increase the effectiveness of these biological controls. ATTRA has more information on this technique in the Farmscaping to Enhance Biological Control publication https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/summar ... aping.html . As mentioned above under Cultural and Physical Controls, mulching also favors CPB predators.

and from the same article, I thought this was really interesting:

Another exclusion strategy is the use of plastic-lined trenches as a barrier to CPBs entering a potato field. (5) Beetles can walk on clean plastic mulch at an angle, but once the plastic is coated with fine soil particles, this becomes impossible. Trenches with walls sloping at greater than 46° will retain an average of 84% of all adults caught under field conditions. A potato field surrounded by plastic-lined trenches might see its population of overwintered adult beetles reduced by nearly half.

[applestar]

I have/had the same buggers. I assumed them to be the earliest instar of Colorado potato beetles since I have seen/stomped on a few of them and found their orange eggs on the eggplants earlier in the week (must have missed a few).

Their tan bloated soft bodies remind me of -- I think the brain bug in Spacesomething Troopers (I think that was the name of the movie -- the movie is so bad you start to wonder why you're watching it but sometimes end up watching to the end.... ). Voracious, but very easy to squish -- albeit somehow more yucky -- once found.

[!potatoes!]

saw some relatives of these on some naturalized physalis plants recently...even less pleasant to squish, since they wear a shield of their own poop on their backs. ick.