Raising a garden is not an easy things to do considering that there are lots of problems to be considered such as the problem with bugs. Gardens are prone to the invasion of some insects like the insect that is called as the “potato bug”. The potato bugs are considered to be as one of the voracious eaters among the insects.
The potato bug is the name usually called for some land isopods. They are also called as the pill bugs or the roly-poly. Some of these isopods are also called sow bugs or wood lice. Some experts say’s that these are not really insects but rather they are arthropods which look like an insect. Arthropods are those creatures that have their skeletons in the outside parts of the body.
These creatures are said to be as crustaceans, they are mostly harmless which give benefits for the garden as they munch away the dead plants and grinding up some craps in compost heap.
However, there are so called true potato beetle. This is known as the Colorado potato beetle. It is about 10 mm in length; these beetles have distinctive black and yellow stripes on their back from their head to their tail. If the plants are in tatter, such as the potato plants, the tomatoes, the peppers, the eggplants and the flowering tobacco plants, it might be the cause of the Colorado potato beetle or the so-called potato bug.
In potatoes, it had been said that the potatoes planted in the month of May are the most vulnerable to the invasion of these beetles. This is the finding of the Ohio State University since these plants grows as the over wintered beetles are likely to emerge.
It is true that these beetles are hard to control considering that some of the most resistant beetles are able to survive from the years of pesticides use in the potato and tomato farms. They are hard to kill with the use of the standard insect poisons.
However, the use of the thuringensis (also called as Bt spray) is found to be effective in the battle against the said beetle as will as to their larvae. One of the problems that are encountered in the use of this spray is that it will kill some of the helpful beetles, insects as well as the moths and the butterflies.
Another method used to combat the said beetle is through handpicking which could possibly be done if you have a small-sized garden. The use of the barrier method is also beneficial as well as the method of inter-planting the garden with other plants such as flowers, these will make the beetles attract to the other plants instead of the cultivated plants.
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