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catsgurleygirl

Can you identify this caterpillar?

catsgurleygirl
9 years ago

Something or things have been munching in my bean leaves. Found this little guy tonight. Not sure what to do for pest management. We have raised beds and I don't want to take out the good guys with the bad. I know sevin kills bees and earthworms and I have seen several lady bugs and wasps around so, just not sure. I think several things have been eating the beans because I have seen another caterpillar that is black and has green or yellow strips down his sides and some my leaves have the green part eaten away and the little papery membrane left. Anyway, thanks for the help!

Comments (17)

  • skw1rl
    9 years ago

    Yes. It is an Army Worm. I have my own technique to prevent worms and slugs. I gather up used egg shells, crush them and create a border around the plant with them. Worms and slugs do not/will not cross the sharp edges.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Fall armyworm

  • woohooman San Diego CA zone 10a
    9 years ago

    BT K variant is what you want carsgurleygirl. Eggshells and deterrents like that do nothing for the caterpillars that are already on the plants and hiding. Try to find, pick and discard any and then do a couple weekly treatments of the BT -- after that, treatments every 2 weeks.

    DO NOT use sevin -- bad stuff. It kills all the beneficials like you mentioned. BT only kills caterpillars. Available at any nursery or garden center.

    Kevin

  • Ohiofem 6a/5b Southwest Ohio
    9 years ago

    I agree with Kevin. Bt is sold as a powder under the name Dipel, or as a liquid you dilute under the name Thuricide. One of the oldest and safest organic pesticides. And it just kills caterpillars.

  • catsgurleygirl
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thanks so much! By the way, do y'all know of any other effective organic pesticides? What can I do to improve the good guys who eat the bad guys coming to our garden? Thanks!! Here is pic of our grow area.

  • digdirt2
    9 years ago

    There are all kinds of effective organic pesticides available. But they are all very pest-specific. Thus the basic rule of first you ID the pest, then you evaluate the damage, and only if it is severe do you use the least toxic pesticide for that pest. You'll find this discussed in great detail on the Organic gardening forum here.

    What can I do to improve the good guys who eat the bad guys coming to our garden?

    The best thing you can do is avoid using pesticides and for that to work you have to be accepting of of more pest damage than many are willing to accept.

    Dave

  • catsgurleygirl
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Okay-thanks for the advice! I was wondering about that last night, how they used to prevent pest and crop damage hundreds of years ago before they had pesticides (guess they didn't). In a large-scale farm you would think it would be easier to handle the damage. But on the small-scale if you only have 50 bean plants and half of them get eaten it makes it kind of tough. Guess on a large-scale you get large-scale pest damage as well, so...

  • digdirt2
    9 years ago

    No if you have 50 bean plants and half of them get eaten then most any gardener, organic or otherwise, would have intervened. :) With either Bt or at least by digging up the armyworms - which is fairly easy to do in a raised bed by running a hoe down the sides of the rows and pitching the worms as they roll up to the surface. Lightly digging around the plants with your hands is even easier to find them.

    Organic gardening and its tolerance of less than perfection is all a matter of degrees. ie : most of the leaves eaten off the plants vs. some holes in leaves. Or how many army worms per square foot of soil. 1-3, no problem, 10-12 a real problem.

    You'd be amazed at the number of gardeners who panic at even some holes in leaves and call it "destroying my beans" when they post or they find one worm and decide their garden must be infested with them. Without a photo of the damage we can only deal with the info given.

    Ultimately the choice is yours as to when to intervene. Organic gardening only asks that you keep a realistic perspective.

    Dave

  • woohooman San Diego CA zone 10a
    9 years ago

    Agree with Dave and the "less than perfection" thing. And I tend to stick to the "Identify FIRST, then treat" methodology.

    Take aphids, for instance. First, I rub them off my seedlings. A couple weeks later, if I still see them, I try jets of water every 3 days. After a week or 2 of that, if I still see them, I use insecticidal soap or neem oil every few days. If I still see them after that, I MIGHT order ladybugs or green lacewing eggs and release.

    But really, I'm hoping that my IPM program is already in effect of the last treatment. That is--- planting flowers and herbs to bloom at different times of the year to attract the good bugs and keep the populations at bay.

    Research Integrated Pest Management. I'm no expert on it, but I've noticed a great reduction in damage to my plants since I started it and an occasional usage of target specific organic pesticides such as those I've mentioned in this thread.

    Here's a few links that may be helpful.

    http://www.organicgardeninfo.com/beneficial-insectary-plants.html

    http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/

    http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/quickref/pest%20management/plants_attract_beneficial.html

    Kevin

  • zzackey
    9 years ago

    You can plant plants that draw beneficial insects. Even organic sprays can kill beneficial insects.

  • loribee2
    9 years ago

    The organic products I use to keep pests and problems away are:

    Sluggo for slugs
    Neem for many aphid like bugs
    Copper fungicide for moldy type stuff
    Bt for caterpillars
    High-ish pressure water spray to keep aphids off some plants (I don't do this to tomatoes as they don't like to get wet. But I do hose aphids off zucchini, greens and such)

    What I've learned about all of these things is if you wait for the bugs to show up, you're often too late. They all work better as a preventative measure.

  • planatus
    9 years ago

    Around here we call that a cutworm. Planting your beans a little later can help. You have a lovely garden, small enough so you can slip a toothpick or two into the soil around your remaining bean seedlings. If a cutworm can't girdle something, they can't destroy it. Also, one cutworm can do a lot of damage. Simply nabbing your suspect may stop the problem for now.

    We keep a huge organic garden and never spray anything except BT sometimes in September for control of cabbageworms and armyworms on fall broccoli and cabbage. Instead of asking how to keep bugs out, we grow lots for flowers which attract huge numbers of beneficial and benign life forms. Hand picking of unwanted insects is usually easier, faster and safer than spraying.

  • catsgurleygirl
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thank you all so much for your help-really appreciate it!

  • lkzz
    9 years ago

    sqw1rl...great idea.
    We have chickens so lots of shells available.

  • cold_weather_is_evil
    9 years ago

    >> What can I do to improve the good guys who eat the bad guys coming to our garden?

    Sometimes the good guys do their own damage. These sunflowers growing in not-yet-food-grade manure, while really ratty looking under their minor little canopy, are actually healthy. Don't know yet if they'll stay far enough ahead of the damage to work out. The small finch/sparrow sized birds find them to be an agreeable shelter (I flush them out of the big flowers and the cukes regularly) but they do nibble. A lot.

    They seem to love cherry tomatoes too, but I don't see many nasties anywhere. Flowers, bugs, septic manure, tomatoes, bird song, it's all a jumble. It's a trade off. It's a whole bunch of fun.

  • rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
    9 years ago

    Catsgurleygirl, human efforts of pest control began with the advent of early agriculture. We have written records of the earliest civilizations practicing many forms of IPM, I'm not talking about grandpaw and grandmaw, but crop protection going back many thousands of years. :-)

  • flowergirl70ks
    9 years ago

    Please tell me what septic manure is?
    I do not remember ever fighting bad bugs when I lived on the farm, and the nearest vege garden to me was at least a half mile away. I didn't own a sprayer or know what sevin was.
    Now that I live in town and try to raise a little of my own healthy food, its nearly impossible to do without resorting to some kind of pesticide.
    Last year the worst enemy was flea beetles. They were never ending. The grasshopper invasion was horrible.
    No one around me gardens, or for that matter mows the grass or weeds until the city gives them a citation. I feel doomed living here where I can't raise anything good to eat without spraying.

  • cold_weather_is_evil
    9 years ago

    I use a lot of manure but the stuff never comes with a certificate of purity. Because of some hefty paranoia on my part I try to set the stuff aside to age gracefully into dowager-hood. I have a bin for cold composting, but if there's room it sits in a bed.

    So, the first year it gets to sit and grow flowers or such. Lots of field marigolds; crazy about those. Because of a suggestion I read here, I have one un-aged bed growing okra (and marigolds), and since nobody actually eats okra, it's really just a cover crop.

    Next year the two flower beds that are sitting sort of fallow will get food in them. Marigolds too since they're unstoppable self seeders. I figure that any trace pathogens and perhaps herbicides will be minimized by then. Until that time, I think of the beds as septic, as in germy and dangerous to health.

    I come from deep in the chemical culture. I dipped my dogs in sevin, sprayed the yards for ticks with malathion, fogged my house while still inside it, and hoarded some of the last bags of DDT in Virginia. I've driven perhaps 2 million miles in my life, most of which was inhaling Carbon Monoxide loaded with tetra-ethyl lead. I used to play with mercury in my hands and spit it through a pea shooter. I've inhaled herbicides that our government said were harmless. I believed in the slogan of better living through chemistry.

    I don't believe those god damned bastards any more. I just had to draw a line and stick to it. Had to start being careful.

    In the last year I've used two chemicals. Chalk that up to luck. One was mosquito dunks as a source of BT for house plants that got a bit loaded with gnats. The other was Epsom salts. Knock on wood. Knock on wood again. Everything else came from stable manure, plant waste, and household garbage. Again, luck, and a willingness to let stuff get eaten by critters.

    Sorry. I'll shut up now. Goodbye.