O-M-G!!!...They're baaaaaack...How do I control Weevils!

[DR1VEN]

MAYDAY-MAYDAY-MAYDAY....DR1VEN Garden 1 is going down....

Here is a stock photo pic...I have these everywhere in my backyard. ID confirmed for sure.

https://images.glaciermedia.ca/polopoly_ ... 51-jpg.jpg

A year ago we were INUNDATED with these...I am not exaggerating here. There were thousands for about a month in the backyard. They were invading the house too. We found them in our bed , carpets , our walls , and 5 of them every single square foot outside ....This is no joke. I need serious help here.

I had to spray the entire backyard 2 times with bug/flea/tick spray and they disappeared last year and we haven't seen them since.

My eggplants have been getting destroyed lately so I went outside just now expecting snails/slugs and the 5 plants were SWARMING with them.

Need help please...Anything I can do besides spraying the poison all over my backyard? I have 20X the edible plants than I did back then....

[rainbowgardener]

Oh geeezzzee, creepy! Do you know what kind of weevil, there are a zillion of them -- rice weevils, boll weevils, black vine weevils, etc. etc. I don't know if it makes a difference or not, re control of them.

Here's what I read about them: They come out at night and feed on leaves; during the day they find dark moist spots to hide. This is similar behavior to slugs, so some of the same trap methods should work. Put a board down flat on the soil, near where you have seen them. Come out the next day in the heat of the day, they will probably be clustered under the board and you can scrape them into a bucket of soapy water. At night, come out with a flashlight, put a white drop cloth under your plants and shake the plants. You will probably see the weevils fall off onto the drop cloth.

If you have a hand vaccuum like a dust devil, you can try just vaccuuming them off your plants (again at night when they are up on the plants).

Beneficial nematodes are predators of the larvae in the soil. Since the adults are around now this is the wrong time. As you said the adults should only be around for a month or so. Then they lay eggs and two weeks later the eggs hatch into larvae that burrow into the soil. So maybe August or so you can treat the soil with beneficial nematodes (available on line) to help prevent this from happening again next year.

I usually am a fan of mulching, but in this case the mulch gives lots of nice moist hiding places for them. Get rid of your mulch and let the soil dry out as much as you can between waterings. Till or cultivate the soil in the fall and in the meantime hoe between the rows. Plant alliums (onions, chives, garlic, etc) mixed in with your veggie crops to help repel them (I always do this anyway, alliums are deterrents for a lot of different bugs).

Diatomaceous earth should work against them (and many other pests). Sprinkle (food grade) DE on the soil around your plants and on the plants (it is harmless to humans--we eat it all the time since stored grains are treated with it to help keep weevils and other pests out of the grain). The only trouble with DE is that it has to be re-applied after rain. In my usually rainy climate, that's almost prohibitive, but in SoCal you probably have a much drier summer, so it should really help.

Best Wishes! Let us know how it goes for you...

[applestar]

You need to identify what they are after.

Since you think the eggplant foliage was being eaten, could these be Pepper Weevils?

https://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r604301011.html

The pepper weevil is a common pest in southern California where it can migrate in from areas with warm winters or survive year-round in years when winters are mild. The adult pepper weevilis a small beetle, about 1/8 inch (3 mm) long, with a dark body that has a brassy luster to it. Larvae are off-white grubs with a brown head and are about 1/4 inch (6 mm) when mature.

https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/veg ... l.htm#host

Host Plants (Back to Top)

Pepper weevil larvae develop only plants in the family Solanaceae. Oviposition occurs on plants in the genera Capsicum and Solanum, but feeding by adults extends to other Solanaceae such as Physalis, Lycopersicon, Datura, Petunia, and Nicotiana. Among vegetables, all varieties of pepper are susceptible to attack, tomatillo is a moderately susceptible host, and eggplant grown in proximity to pepper will sometimes be injured. Several species of nightshade support pepper weevil, particularly black nightshade, Solanum nigrum, but also silverleaf nightshade, Solanum elaeagnifolium; horsenettle, Solanum carolinense; buffalo bur, Solanum rostratum; and Jerusalem cherry, Solanum pseudocapsicum.

Apparently, they are a problem in NJ as well


https://plant-pest-advisory.rutgers.edu/ ... -for-2014/

Pepper Weevil Situation for 2014 — Plant & Pest Advisory

For the past two years we have had two NE-SARE grants and a grant from the Charles and Lena Maier Fund, New Jersey Vegetable Growers Association, to study the movement of pepper weevil within New Jersey and how it arrives here. This article summarizes our findings and what the situation is for 2014.

How they get here

Pepper weevils are brought into the state in peppers that were grown in the southern tier of states, Mexico and other locations of the American tropics. Because of the biology of the weevil, the peppers often do not show external damage and so fruit from heavily infested fields can be picked, packaged and transported to unsuspecting markets. Weevil adults escape into the local environs of the produce handling facility via the dumping of refuse or damaged fruit into open dumpsters.

[imafan26]

I get pepper weevils too. They do not travel very far and they emerge from the soil every summer. They lay their eggs on the flowers and the larva eat their way through the pepper and emerge near the cap. Short of picking off every infested fruit as soon as you recognize that it is maturing faster than the rest the only other thing that has worked for me is to plant the pepper somewhere else.

I have never had a large infestation though it was limited to a small area in the garden, so all I did was pull the plants and pick up all the debris I could and basically kept turning the soil to expose it to the sun. They only infest solanaceous fruit and I spread out my plantings so the weevils did not bother the daylililies or basil. They must have been lazy since they really did not migrate from that spot. For me it is only a seasonal problem.

I don't think there are any organic ways to take care of them other than sanitation and planting solanaceous later after they are gone. I would not use flea killer in the garden, but you may have to use something else that is registered for your plants and kills weevils. Otherwise get the dust buster out and start vacuuming and remove all of the solanaceous fruit so they cannot reproduce.

[applestar]

@DR1VEN, when you said ID confirmed, did you mean weevils in general or do you think they are pepper weevils, too?

[DR1VEN]

Thank you so much all!!!

Very helpful and exactly what I was looking for....

ID confirmed....Here it is. otiorhynchus sulcatus

https://www.google.com/search?q=otiorhy ... BigB&dpr=1


This was a stumper last year....Orkin man, Terminex, other pest controls, nursery's in my area, Home depot, etc...no one could ID it even with 50 of them in a bag to look at. They all said just spray everything....

Randomly 3 months later I stumbled into a bug enthusiast "Street fair" while on vacation....Within 2 seconds 4 different folks ID'd it from pictures as Weevils....Got to love the enthusiast!

I found the above link after a lot of work...There is no "elongated snout" vs the Pepper weevil. He's got a pretty big honker.

I'm going to take ALL the advice you all so graciously provided....I'm going to have enough critters to go around.

[imafan26]

Interesting. I'm glad I don't have them on my plants, but then again I do have a healthy garden patrol except for the snails and slugs. I don't have any predator making a dent in that population.

[applestar]

I think the OP's garden will need time to recover from this --

I had to spray the entire backyard 2 times with bug/flea/tick spray and they disappeared last year and we haven't seen them since.

That kind of blanket treatment would have wiped out not only the pests but the beneficial Garden Patrol as well. And I believe most likely have killed or prevented any eggs from hatching.

At this point, it would be a good idea to find out exactly what you used.

My pet peeve with insecticide (herbicide) etc. is that the main label tells you the "target" pests they kill as if those are the only things affected. Wouldn't it be interesting if they were required to list all of the "also kills" ? They are only doing that with bees because they've had to but there are others I want to be sure not to kill, too. Easier NOT to use them if I I want to be sure.

[rainbowgardener]

Good point about the sprays wiping out beneficial insects as well as pests.

Note RE: " I had to spray the entire backyard 2 times with bug/flea/tick spray and they disappeared last year and we haven't seen them since." That is not necessarily the success of the spray. Remember what we said, the life cycle of the weevil is that the adults are only present for 4-6 weeks. By then they have laid their eggs and gone off to die. The eggs hatch into larvae that burrow into the soil. The larvae do a lot of damage eating plant roots, but then as it gets cold they burrow farther down into the soil for the winter. They do not emerge again until the following year. So by the time you sprayed the second time, the adults were probably at the end of their life cycle anyway. The results would have been the same whether you did or didn't spray.

There are tiny (stingless) parasitic wasps that prey on the weevils. The wasp adults need nectar to live on, from flowers like all the carrot family ones (and others) that have their nectar in tiny florets. There are many beneficial insects that use flowers like this (hoverflies, tachnid flies, etc etc) so they are really good to have in your garden. Besides the carrot family things, these include yarrow, tansy, alyssum, buckwheat, and others.