I hope you get answers from people who have fought this battle and won....I sure haven't.....I will be watching the answers on this thread.....

Honestly I have never had a problem with cuke beetles on any of my squash, it is squash bugs that do me in, so I'm not sure how much help this will be.

But yes if you don't want to use any stronger pesticides and IF you can time your plantings to the beetle cycle in your area it can help. Linked an article on it below.

But it is difficult to do as they have Q 6-9 week multi-hatch cycles in warmer climates so that is 3 active cycles for me in the average year. That's why the row covers and hand pollination has proven to be the most productive for me.

Last year I added Kaolin clay dust (Surround) to my pest controls and was very pleased with the results, especially with squash bugs and stink bugs. Gives everything a gray color but I can live with it if it means more good fruit.

Dave

PS: I'm curious about how you store cukes for any length of time?

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic controls for cuke beetles

I too have problems with this and hope that some good answers show up. I get both cucumber beetles AND squash bugs and they do a job on my winter squash, pumpkins, and melons. They seem to spread diseases and cause the vines to wilt. In the last few years, I have been doing more spraying with Sevin, which seems effective on the cuke beetles to the point that the melon plants survive to produce melons. It seems less effective on the squash and the yield lately has been awful.

Frank

I've had a huge problem w. them in the past. I am going to be getting one of these this year, and place it on a shepherd's hook between my two cukes trellises. Hopefully, it works

Here is a link that might be useful: Cucumber beetle trap

Only harsh pesticides kill cucumber beetles and they are becoming an epidemic. However you can just take the shop vac out there in morning and vac them out of the squash flowers. I sucked up thousands! The bees get out of the flower as you come but the squash bugs get sucked up.
Planting at different times will not help for this bug IMO.
See the link for a promising new thing for them. I am going to order it if they get bad and I can't vaccuum enough.

Here is a link that might be useful: chitosan

I've been fighting these cuke beetles for about as many years as I have been planting cukes.
A friend of mine uses this method, a small dish of soapy water, hold it just under the flower where the beetle are and gently shake the flower. Beetles come out and DROP right into the soapy water and die.
Note they dont fly away just drop off...
I have been using a long thin needle nose pliers, helps some times.
Last couple of years I made traps for them...1 was a few clear beer bottle with yellow artificial flowers attached with an opening to allow the beetle to enter, inside the bottle I had a few cotton balls with drops of oil of cloves on them.
I should have had hoards or beetles...nope nary a one...
Last year I picked up a bunch of bright yellow small gadgets and smeared Tanglefoot on them, had a few..
By the way oil of cloves is an attractant for cucumber beetles if their in the area...(so I read)
This year I am planting some cukes that are resistant to beetles..will see what happens, I'll still have the needlenose pliers oiled up

Chitosan is neat, but it's grossly overpriced in the aftermarket considering it's shipped by the ton to the US for about $2500.

The supplement market buys a lot of it and sells it at a huge markup in pressed capsules. The markup on the "miracle organic spray" market is even greater.

It's cheaper for most people to make their own pesticide "miracle sprays" by buying the supplement versions and mixing their own sprays.

If you're really into looking hard for it...you can occasionally find it sold (usually from overseas sources) as a food purifier supplement and shipped to you.

Digdirt, when I said storing cucumbers I meant pickling. I should have been more specific.

nccrn, what is the variety of resistant cucumber? So far as I knew a resistant cucumber variety did not exist.

With cukes, Little Leaf and a few other good picklers are resistant to bacterial wilt. So, even if the beetles feed on the plants, they don't wilt and die. By sticking with resistant varieties, I have not lost a cucumber in years. Unfortunately genetic resistance is not available in melons.

Hand-held rechargeable vacs are getting more popular for cuke beetle control, as well as coaxing chickens to feed in the squash patch for an hour before dark.

Resistant cucumbers I ordered from Park seed catalog this year, Johnny's catalog has some also.
I haven't seen any resistant types sold on shelves.

But cuc beetles are much worse on squash and melons than cucumbers. In fact they bother my flowers for market the most of anything. I heard someone say cuc beetles were named that for their color since they do not discriminate on the crops- corn, beans, flowers, squash, melons, anything sweet.

I tried to make several traps last year but they did not work. The shop vac worked great but I didn't do it until very late so I think this year should go better. However, the cuc beetles actually did not have a negative effect on my squash or melons or cucs. They only harmed the dahlias and glads really.

I have given up trying to grow organically. I have tried exclusion with row cover.

{{gwi:28662}}

The problems I had was it got too hot and my transplants were too big to start with. Then the weeds got out of control fast, even though I had plastic mulch and straw between the two beds.

I use Bug-b-gone Max with the active ingredient bifenthrin. With 1,000's of acres of corn around me, I get lots more bugs.

I grow many succession planting of squash and cucumbers. I can usually get the earliest ones( transplanted in high tunnels around April 10th) then about ever 3 to 4 weeks until late August.

I spray the first time I see cucumber beetles, then one week later. Then I scout and if I see any the 3rd week I spray one more time. Usually after that, I don't have cucumber beetles for the rest of that season. I can also usually get the last 1-2 plantings in without spraying too. If a crop gets infested, I just spray it and kill everything and get rid of it. Then wait for the next planting to produce.

It works for me on a larger scale, we have planted 1/2 acre of winter squash for the last two years and have had minimal problem.

Jay

"Only harsh pesticides kill cucumber beetles "

::laughing::

That is not true at all!

I see no one has mentioned beneficial nematodes. I picked off the 300 adult beetles, watered with nematodes, and my problem was pretty much gone. The next generation was about 10 beetles. I picked them off, too, and laid soap traps around for any I missed.

I am now a big fan of nematodes :). Possible the best $10 I ever spent.

zzita....please tell us more about the nematodes. I wouldn't mind spending 10 bucks to get rid of the little buggers.

nc-cm...do you have a recipe for homemade chitosan spray?

Cucumber beetles don't show up here until later on in the summer, they like my dahlia blooms better than cucs. I use dipel dust on about any bug I get.

I've tried the nematodes. I got MAYBE fewer beetles. The thing is, they have to be sprayed on the soil when the beetles are in the larval stage. That is, for the new generation, not the wintering-over generation.

I've also tried the traps. Big Fail.

I've also tried growing Little Leaf when I really want slicers. Little Leaf isn't a good slicer and it died from wilt as fast as the other varieties.

I finally got down to waiting til dusk when I hoped the bees are gone and spraying a feedant insecticide.

sweetquietplace:

'zzita....please tell us more about the nematodes. I wouldn't mind spending 10 bucks to get rid of the little buggers. '

What do you want to know?

The nematodes eat the cucumber beetle larvae.

You get them at the nursery, where they should be in a fridge. They come in bit of moist foam rubber, which you rinse out into a watering jug and then pour on the soil. Do it on a cloudy day. Directions on the packet.

There are a lot in the packet. You can do your whole yard, or do one bed multiple times for good measure.

Hand picking. Food grade Diatomaceous Earth dusting on leaves. Shallow water basin with red dye plus clove oil.

But hand picking works best, yet I hate it most.

Oooh, I didn't know diatomaceous earth would help!

I have never seen nematodes that cheap. When I looked into them last year it was very pricey. Then I got out the shop vac. Organic sprays do not work on them is what I meant.

Do you have a new garden area that you could grow the plants? Also, I find that heavy loam soil provides a more unfavorable environment compared to sandy and compost enriched soils. Cooler and wetter summers lessen the presence of the insects, too. Plant covers have helped my crops, too.

Commenting on flowergirl's mention of use of Dipel for beetles or "on about any bug I get" ... Dipel is a trade name for BT (Bacillus thuringiensis)and therefore effective ONLY on leaf-eating caterpillars. Won't do a thing to beetle or bug adults or larvae.

Just noticed a bunch of cucumber beetles munching on a few bush bean plants. Picked about 20 beetles which is all that I saw. They did quite a number on some bean leaves but Ironically I have cucumbers growing right next to the beans and they didn't touch them, "yet."

Weedlady, I don't think dipel kills caterpillers very well either. I always thought bugs didn't like crawling thru it.

Flowergirl, perhaps you are thinking of diatomaceous earth (DE = fossilized diatoms--microscopic sea creatures) --a powder that may be sprinkled around on plants and around the house to control crawling insects? It is not a chemical, and works on all sorts of insects. It has the effect of ground glass on an insect although it feels to one's fingers as talcum powder. Once they come in contact with it, the sharp bits penetrate the insect's outer body (exoskeleton) causing the critter to dehydrate & die.

As for Dipel (or Thuricide, a liquid form of Bt), the caterpillar must actually eat some of a leaf that has been sprayed with the biological insecticide. Once it does, their digestive tract is paralyzed and they stop eating & die (NOT instantly, however). I definitely have had success with it.

The problem with cucumber beetles is not the feeding per se, but the transmission of Bacterial Wilt. It only takes one beetle with a dirty mouth to destroy your cucumber and/or muskmelon crop. That's why waiting until the things are in high numbers before you start control methods is a waste of time.

Controlling cuke beetles organically is next to impossible. They have been the bedevilment of farmers for over a hundred years. Here is the first line from the section on cucumbers in Peter Henderson's book "Gardening For Profit" written in 1867.

"The growing of the Cucumber out-of-doors is, in most places , occasioned by the attacks of the "Striped Bug."When seed is sown in the open ground, repeated sowings are often utterly destroyed by this pest, despite of all remedies."

Here are the tricks I've learned to keep the evil ones at bay.

1. Plant your cucurbits as early as possible. Fertilize them well and get them up and running as fast as possible. Use IRT mulch for melons.
2. Use row cover until flowering.
3. Plant a "trap" crop such as zucchini or Hubbard squash at the periphery of your garden early on so it is up and growing at the time your valued crop is still protected.
4. As soon as you see any cucumber beetles on the trap crop, spray the entire crop with a pyrethrin such as bifenthrin. I spray at night using a flashlight to avoid hurting bees. 7 to 10 days later, check again. Any beetles, blast the trap crop. Keep blasting the trap crop until you see no more beetles.
   5. Once your crops are exposed and you see any cuke beetles, you must spray them as well. I have found with the trap crop method, the beetles disappeared for most of the season. Cuke beetles are strong fliers and will arrive in you garden from neighboring overwintering sites.
   6. Succession plant your cucumbers, summer squash. Once a plant is infected with bacterial wilt, you have about two to three weeks until the plant croaks.
   7. For organic growers, kaolin clay works OK, but keeping the plants covered with kaolin diminishes photosynthesis and once the plants are sprawling, I found it difficult to cover the plants. I also found the beetles were still a problem, though less so.

For the SVB, I spray with bifenthrin as well. I also, inject the vines with spinosad. I haven't lost a plant to SVB for 3 years since using this method.
Hope this helps.

Excellent info..thank you

I always plant my cucs and zucs at the end of june, and they thrive until frost.

If I plant them early in the summer, they succumb to bacterial wilt and vine borers. I really want to plant them earlier, I only just last week am harvesting, but I get more fruit this way.

I know a fellow who farms a bit, he told me to plant cucumbers on June 21.
Never mentioned why, however I'm going to try that next season.
His cucumbers are gorgeous.
By the way, I ordered cuke seeds this year from Twilley's seeds.
They have a cucumber named, thunder, other seed catalogs have it also.
Thunder is noted as being resistant to many maladies, 1 of which is the bacterial wilt.
I havent had cucumbers like this years crop, ever.
Although it could be that I changed over to SFG.

Once your plant (squash in my case) has been infected and you’ve successfully gotten rid of the beetles, can your now pitiful looking squash still survive and produce? Can you cut it down and hope it grows if new shoots appear at the base? I’m desperately trying to save them but don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.

In Pennsylvania and New York where I gardened for the last 40 years, bacterial wilt was sometimes really bad on melons. But this is only one disease of many. Sometimes beetles seem to suck the vigor out of a plant without causing lots of wilting - the plant just hangs on and hardly grows. But for wilt, the vine tips would start to wilt and within a few days the whole plant withered and died. It would occasionally get a cuke plant, sometimes killing it. Different varieties right next to the infected plant would sometimes do fine because of that varieties resistance. Always look for resistance when selecting seeds and plant several ones if you can. I plant one plant each of 4 cuke varieties. Each single plant gives me a lot of cukes. My winter and summer squash would suffer from the cuke beetle attacks, but the plant would usually survive and eventually produce a good crop, but last year one yellow zuchini only produced a few small fruits and eventually died, even though the green ones came back fine. I use mainly organic methods, but if I see many cuke beetles, I get out the Sevin and blast them and repeat if they come back in a week to get rid of them before they do a lot of damage. They will multiply like crazy and bite everything in sight, spreading all kinds of plant diseases around! Now on your question, the answer is 'it depends'. If the plant shows signs of creating new leaves at the center growing point, it will likely survive. I don't think it can produce shoots from the roots - they seem to come out at existing leaf nodes, so you would need at least a leaf attached. Early like this I would just get another plant from a garden center or plant new seeds - time is wasting and you can't tell what is going to happen, so waiting and hoping is a gamble on getting nothing later on.