Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Scout26 on August 14, 2013, 05:44:33 PM
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Okay, it appears that in my recent absences these bastards have eaten one of my rose bushes and are attacking another. (And having S-E-X on my flowers !!!!)
What are they and how do I eliminate them with prejudice? (And if anyone has any DDT, I've got stuff to trade.)
Sorry for the crappy re-sized cell phone picture.
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Don't know what they are, but if you have absolutely, positively, kill all insects in the area, look for TenGard at your local farm supply.
One ounce per gallon will kill anything it touches, but is safe within three days, and won't hurt your earthworms (doesn't last long enough).
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Japanese beetle.
A common remedy is a neonicotinoid systemic insecticide like acetamiprid or imidacloprid. Apply before you see Japanese Beetle damage, the plant takes it up, and if the beetles show up they die after ingesting any leaves.
They're kind of a pain though when they show up unexpected because you usually see heavy damage by the time you realize they're there. They eat fast. Something like TenGard as Larry suggested would be good if you know they're hitting your plants regularly. The active ingredient permethrin is a "contact killer" as I understand it and washes away fast. In the same category there's bifenthrin. Same mode of action, and requires contact, but sticks around a bit longer, like a couple of weeks. Might brown up any existing blooms on your roses though.
All of this stuff you can find under regular brand names at any hardware store.
For next year I'd suggest finding some imidicloprid and use that in your watering schedule as directed by the label. It's a pretty common one in products labeled for use on roses. Sometimes you'll find it with a systemic fungicide tebuconazole to help keep powdery mildew down. Bayer makes a "3 in 1" product that contains both plus it's got fertilizer in it too, hence the "3 in 1" designation. If I had roses, and I cared about them looking nice, I'd probably use that routinely.
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Won't imidocloprid kill any bees that visit the flowers? There was a *massive* bumblebee kill in Oregon a few weeks ago when some knucklehead sprayed a stand of linden trees with Safari before they bloomed. Or do bees not like roses?
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Safari (dinotefuran) is another neonicotinoid but is specifically labeled as something that should not be sprayed on plants during bloom because it is highly toxic to bees. Imidacloprid won't carry that same warning. Just how bad it and other neonicotinoids currently considered safe to bees actually are is being debated now that colony collapse disorder has been around a while.
When it comes to growing things that actually depend on bees (the whole cucurbit family, bunch of other stuff too) I would suggest a pyrethroid applied far ahead of bloom time to knock down pests like squash bugs. But you gotta knock them down early because you can't apply that during bloom as they're all highly toxic to bees. And if you don't get a perfect kill a wee bit of squash bug damage is tolerable, probably won't even affect yield. In those cases you don't just want bees you NEED bees. The neo-nics like acetamiprid and imidacloprid are supposed to be totally safe to bees, but people that say otherwise are gaining traction. And after treating my little 1 acre of pumpkins with acetamiprid I did fine a dead bee shortly after. Poor bastard probably took a shot right to the face. I was working in some pumpkins that bloomed earlier than expected what with having been started in 4" pots inside the greenhouse. Or maybe he just died of old age. I probably saw 600 more bees that day swarming plants that I hit with acetamiprid.
But for a flowering ornamental you want to keep it pristine, you don't need the bees to get what you want out of the equation, and you probably don't want to attract them to your house in the first place. If somebody had bees all up in their roses like I do in my pumpkin plants they'd probably just kill them out of fear.