Some good news for Maryland fruit growers.

The EPA approved, for emergency use, the insecticide dinotefuran (trade names Venom and Scorpion) on tree fruit to help manage populations of the brown marmorated stink bug.

The nvasive insect caused extensive yield losses in tree fruit production in the mid-Atlantic region last year and was expected to do even more damage this season.

The approval, known as an emergency exemption, applies to Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, North Carolina and New Jersey. Under the exemption, producers of stone fruit (such as peaches, plums and cherries) and pome fruit (including apples and pears) are allowed to manage the brown marmorated stink bug with two applications of dinotefuran by ground equipment per season.

Continue reading "Help arrives in the stink bug battle" »

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Categories: Insects
        

Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/David Hobby

My colleague at The Baltimore Sun, Tim Wheeler, writes that Maryland's state butterfly, the Baltimore Checkerspot, is in decline and volunteers are trying to restore the population by breeding them in captivity.

One retired nurse has managed to raise 250 of the butterflies, named for Maryland's founding family, in a tent in Montgomery County.

Read more about this effort in Tim's story.

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Fireflies or lightning bugs? (Emptying my notebook after writing a front page story in The Sun about lightning bugs.)

Actually, they are neither bugs nor flies. They are members of the winged beetle family. It is possible they got the name "lightning bug" from the fact that a burst of lightning seems to set them blinking.

Their larvae also produce light and they are often called "glow worms." The light is due to a chemical reaction called bioluminescence and it isn't "light" at all. There are no infrared or ultraviolet frequencies.

Each species has a particular flash pattern and that is how they attract the appropriate mate. But in the Smokey Mountains, there is lightning bug species that blinks in unison. They put on such a show that park rangers have to manage crowds and traffic.

The light is also a warning to birds and spiders, who find the bugs distasteful.

There is a predatory species of lightning bug in which the female will mimic the lighting pattern to attract a male. And then she will devour him.

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The stink bug infestation in Maryland -- damaging crops and annoying homeowners -- has caught the attention of my colleagues in the editorial department of The Baltimore Sun and they are outraged -- outraged, I say!

Seriously, The Sun editorial writers make the excellent point that while we wait for the USDA to come up with a way to combat the stink bug, we are on our own and one of the best ways it to search for egg sacks on its favorite plants -- tomatoes, peppers, squash, fruit trees -- and crush them. The crushed eggs don't smell nearly as bad as the crushed stink bugs do, hence the name.

Stink bugs are such a scourge that they are now infested even the most cerebral sections of a newspaper....

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Five years ago, the U.S. Senate’s unanimously set aside the last week in June to bring attention to pollinating creatures, n an effort to address the urgent issue of declining pollinator populations and habitat.

Today, Pollinator Week is an international celebration of the valuable ecosystem services provided by bees, birds, butterflies, bats and beetles.

Pollinators are vital to our delicate ecosystem, supporting terrestrial wildlife, providing healthy watershed, and more. In addition, perhaps three-quarters of our food supply requires pollination.

So get out there and hug a bee or bake a cake for a butterfly!

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The extension service is trying to develop a comprehensive list of host plants. Right now, that list includes tomatoes, peppers, beans, corn, asparagus, raspberry, peach, pear and apple.

Let the extension know if the stink bugs are worse in your garden this year than last. Send him an email at jont@umd.edu

Also, check out the new floating row cover web page and photo gallery for some ideas on how to exclude pests, like the stink bug, from your garden plants. http://www.growit.umd.edu/ImproveGarden/FloatingRowCover/index.cfm

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Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Jed Kirschbaum

Vegetable gardeners who had a bad time with stink bugs last season -- or who fear one this season -- are wondering what they can plant that these annoying and damaging insects don't like.

Stink bugs not only cluster in great numbers and smell terrible when crushed, they use their mouthpieces to pierce fruits and vegetables and suck out food and moisture. The resulting puncture wound causes fruit and vegetables to decay or develop disease.

I asked Ellen Nibali of the University of Maryland Extension's Home and Garden Information Center what she would recommend. Here are her thoughts on which vegetable to plant, the use of row covers and mulch. (There is more information at the HGIC website on dealing with stink bugs in your home.)

Early crops will probably avoid the wrath of the stink bugs, at least intense damage.  Also, very late crops. So, timing is something to experiment with.

However, all we can say for certain is that legumes, tomatoes, pepper and sweet corn were heavily infested last year  There were reports on cucurbits, i.e. cucumbers and squash, plus the melons.  However, we don't know for sure exactly what part of the plant was damaged.  Stink bugs generally go for flowers, stems and pods of legumes (especially soybeans) and fruits of plants such as tomato.  They can insert their proboscus through the husk of corn.

All of which is to say, plant other crops.  Try lettuce or eggplant  or any of the brassicas--cabbage, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radish, turnips, etc.  Stink bugs have been seen on eggplant, but no injury  has been officially reported.   

Last summer we got reports, and noticed ourselves, that stink bugs seemed to leave some varieties of plants alone more than others.  In the case of tomatoes, we suspected that the thicker-skinned varieties may have been less attractive to the stink bugs. I had a orangy yellow variety that definitely was their least favorite.   There should be more information on all this by the end of this growing season as much research is on-going. 

Incidentally, blueberries and blackberries were reported to have no injury.  Red raspberries, I can say from experience, were hammered.  But I went out once or twice a day and knocked off the nymphs and adults into soapy water and got a reasonable crop. 

Continue reading "Stink bugs: what vegetables don't they like?" »

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Is there a cure for the stink bugs that are plaguing Mid-Atlantic farmers and homeowners alike?

My colleague at The Sun, Mary McCauley, writes today that USDA researchers are working with a tiny "imported" wasp that lays its eggs inside the eggs of stink bugs. The wasp babies then eat their way out of the stink bug eggs, destroying the baby stink bugs in the process.

It is a fascinating story, but a happy ending is a couple of years off and farmers don't know if they can survive until then. Stink bugs, which have no native predators, are destroying crops like mad.

I wonder if we have learned any lessons about using one species to control another? I have no doubt that the imported wasps will destroy the sting bugs. But what will be needed to keep the wasps in check?

Continue reading "A cure for stink bugs?" »

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There is another reason why stink bugs are such a nuisance - they have no natural predators.

Jon Traunfeld of the University of Maryland Extension adds these insights about the damage stink bugs can do.

Stink bugs insert their slender mouthparts and suck plant sap, mostly from fruit and seedpods, although [they] also apparently feeds on leaves. They leave behind toxins that cause “catfacing” of fruits and the “cloudy spot” symptom in tomato and pepper. While one or two stinkbugs on a tomato or pepper will cause only superficial damage, 25 or 30 stinkbugs on a tomato, pepper, or bean will ruin the fruit. Unfortunately, heavy stinkbug activity can allow fungi and bacteria to enter and ruin the fruit."

Continue reading "More on stink bugs" »

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"I don't want to be an alarmist," says Michael Raupp, professor of entomology at the University of Maryland and the scientist behind the blog, "Bug of the Week."

"But the numbers are going to be through the roof. And a lot of homeowners are going to be screaming."

The brown marmorated stink bug looks like a small brown shield with legs and antennae. Raupp thinks the term "marmorated" comes from a Latin word meaning "marbled," a reference to the coloring on their abdomens. Each female can lay 400 eggs.

The Piedmont area of Maryland, which generally includes Carroll, Howard, Harford, Montgomery, Frederick, Allegany and Washington counties, is annually infected with the stink bug, which gets its name from the smell it emits when crushed.

"But they are everywhere this year," said Raupp, from the fruit orchards of Maryland, where they are destroying crops, to the vegetable gardens of homeowners, where they are rarely seen.

"Corn, soybeans, tomatoes, peppers, ornamentals," said Raupp. "They are the perfect pest. They will eat anything.

"If they sucked human blood, there would be a national outcry."

And, pretty soon, they'll be trying to get out of the cold and into your house.

Raupp predicted that when evening temperatures drop in two to three weeks, the stink bug will be seeking warmth through every crack and crevice around windows and doors.

"There is going to be a collective howl like we haven't heard since the cicadas invaded," said Raupp

Continue reading "Return of the stink bugs" »

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Garden Variety has reported her unscientific observation that there are a heck of a lot more butterflies this year.

And, apparently, it isn't because she planted more butterfly-friendly perennials. Or because she made a newspaper tent over the parsley to protect the caterpillars from the birds.

University of Maryland entomologist Michael Raupp, the scientist behind the blog, Bug of the Week, has his own (much intelligent) theory. He called it a variation on the "slow growth, high mortality hypothesis."

Butterflies are cold-blooded creatures, after all, and the warm summer jacked up their metabolism and rushed them through their most vulnerable stages. "When caterpillars are small, they can't escape their predators," he explained.

Continue reading "Butterflies redux" »

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Photo credit: Michael Raupp, University of Maryland

There are no bad bugs. There are just bugs.

That's the kind of answer you get from University of Maryland entomologist Dr. Michael Raupp, the scientist behind the blog "Bug of the Week."

So when I asked him if the ladybug lookalikes crawling all over my butterfly weed were "bad bugs," he said with a shrug, "Bad for the milkweed seeds."

My butterfly weed has formed its pods and they are opening and sending out the same kind of fluffy seed carriers that milkweed produces.

Working in the garden this weekend, I found the pods literally crawling with these little black and orange creatures.

Continue reading "No bad bugs" »

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Photo credit: Sarah Kickler Kelber

Continue reading "Wordless Wednesday: Praying for rain?" »

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Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Jerry Jackson

The count birds, don't they?

I think they should start counting butterflies, too.

My unscientific observation is that there are many more this year than ever before, and other gardeners seem to agree.

That's particularly true of Tiger Swallowtails, which are also making a comeback in England where they have been rare for decades.

The experts say that fluctuations in populations like this are normal.

But it is also possible that this has been a bad year for the parasites and viruses that kill Swallowtails because of the cold and snow of last winter.

Continue reading "A butterfly count?" »

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My friend Angela over at Plants Nouveau, who writes The Weeding Gnome newsletter here in Baltimore, had the right idea.

Like me, she found Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars in her garden. But she brought them indoors to share the metamorphosis process with her kids.

Her caterpillars are safe from birds now, which is probably what happened to mine when they disappeared from the parsley on my deck.

I had thought to put some kind of canopy over the little ones, but I didn't act fast enough.

Stay tuned. Angela promises pictures of the chrysalis tomorrow.

Photo credit: Angela Treadwell-Palmer

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The caterpillars are back, and I am very happy to see them!

Not tent caterpillars, but the pretty green-striped ones that will one day be butterflies. About a half a dozen of them.

Kathy Kadow at the Irvine Nature Center in Owings Mills tells me that they will be black swallowtails when they grow up because their mother chose to lay her eggs on what they can eat - my parsley.

If I had found caterpillars on milkweed, they would have been monarchs. Though they look almost identical, Kadow says, you can tell them apart by the host plant.

Swallowtails also like dill and carrot tops, but birds like caterpillars so I am hoping my visitors survive.

And you thought you planted your herb garden for YOU.

Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer

(Continue reading for information on Irvine's butterfly classes.)

Continue reading "Welcome back, fellas" »

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Categories: Insects
        

Nobody likes mosquitoes. Mosquitoes are so unpopular that they have an official week devoted to their extermination.

The week of June 20-26 has been declared National Mosquito Control Awareness Week by the American Mosquito Control Association.

According to mosquito expert Joe Conlon, a technical advisor for the American Mosquito Control Association, it is impossible to live in a completely mosquito-free environment. Wherever there’s moisture there will be some mosquitoes. But you can reduce your chances of getting bitten  by helping to reduce their breeding habitat.

Immediately after biting a person or an animal to extract a tiny amount of blood, a female mosquito lays her eggs in standing water—usually only yards from where the bite occurred. Upon hatching, the mosquito larvae begin their life cycle in the water. Eliminating pools of standing water near your home is the best way to prevent future generations of mosquitoes.

Continue reading "Mosquitoes have no friends" »

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Garden Variety readers will recall that I spent a ridiculous amount of money on ladybugs last summer in an organic attempt to kill the aphids that were chewing my garden to ribbons.

Twice I released thousands of ladybugs -- ok, some of them were dead -- into the garden in the evening, onto roses and other plants that had been gently misted.

The ladybugs, who are supposed to eat something like 5,000 aphids each in their lifetime, were gone by morning and the aphids were throwing a party.

Photo courtesy of University of California Statewide IPM Program. J. K. Clark, photographer.

Continue reading "They should call them "lazybugs"" »

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There is no explanation for why this is occuring, although there are lots of theories. But Olivia Judson, the fascinating scientist who writes an op-ed column in the New York Times that attempts to explain the world to the rest of us, makes the case that bees don't have a corner on the pollination market.

Judson writes that flowering plants are the largest, most successful group of plants on the planet today -- more than a quarter million different species, nearly 10 times more than all the other types of plants added together. (In contrast, there are only 58,000 different species of living things.)

Continue reading "The business of bees" »

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Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Algerina Perna

Rookie vegetable gardeners have been reading my tips in The Baltimore Sun for the last couple of weeks, and I am hearing from some that 2009 made for a disappointing start for this new endeavor.

There were blossoms, they write, but they never matured into fruit. And they wondered if it was because the bees were MIA.

The bee crisis is real, and it is frightening. The colonies are inexplicably "collapsing," and bees are disappearing. Since something like 80 percent of our food crop requires pollination, we are lost without bees.

Ken Point, who blogs from Central Pennsylvania, attended winter garden meetings in that state and reports on Veggie Gardening Tips that the focus was on pollinators.

Here's some of what he learned about bees.

Continue reading "The buzz about bees" »

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Insects
        

Photo courtesy of the University of Maryland Home and Garden Information Center

First it was stink bugs attempting to work their way into our homes and out of the approaching cold.

Now it is ladybugs.

The University of Maryland Home and Garden Information Center reports that its getting fewer calls about the stink bugs trying to find a place to sleep for the winter. But homeowners are calling now about the multicolored Asian lady beetles, as they are formally known, that are now trying to find their way inside.

(Interesting note: there are more than 100 kinds of ladybugs, and they range in color from pale yellowish brown to bright orange red. And the number of spots can range from zero to 20.)

The ladybugs secrete an aggregation pheromone -- a kind of shout-out to their fellows - when they find a likely home, so you can see hundreds or thousands gathered on your siding, porches and screens. Some may actually get inside.

Unlike the stink bugs, which emit a horrible smell when disturbed, ladybugs are actually benefitial. I wrote about trying to "invite" them into my yard this summer to finish off the aphids on my roses.

I wasn't successful. I guess what I needed was a aggregation pheromone. Anybody know where I can pick one up?

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
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 Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Jerry Jackson

Baltimore Sun photographer Jerry Jackson took one for the team this week.

I am writing about stink bugs in my garden column for The Sun today, and I found a picture of one on-line that I asked Jerry to grab and drop for publication in the paper.

"Hey," he said. "These things are all over the side of my house!"

Great, I said. Gemme a picture.

Jerry, who is a wonderful bird photographer, still has some learning to do to be an insect photographer.

The stick bug sprayed him during the photo session. It is a nasty, peppery spray, and the reason why homeowners are advised not to crush the bugs or irritate them. (Just vacuum them up with a Shop-Vac and throw away the bag.) 

Thanks, Jerry. Your work is not unappreciated.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Sarah Kickler Kelber 

Michael Raupp is an entomologist at the University of Maryland and man behind the lively Bug of the Week blog.

Here is what he had to say when a Monarch butterfly appeared in his garden:

One of the true delights of the steamy summer season in Maryland is the return of the monarch butterfly. I saw my first female monarch two weeks ago (in August) sipping nectar from a swamp-milkweed.

Last autumn the grandparents of this beauty survived a dangerous and arduous migration from the eastern United States to their overwintering sites in central Mexico. During the long winter, they bested predators and weather in their highland retreats.

This spring the vagabonds flew several hundred miles from Mexico to the southern United States before finding suitable milkweed plants to serve as food for their young.

The female monarch lays her eggs, usually one per plant, on the undersurface of a leaf. After several days, the egg hatches and the tiny monarch caterpillar begins to consume the nutritious leaves.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Insects
        

Photo courtesy of University of Minnesota

The gauzy tents you see in the trees these days are not the work of gypsy moths, but of their much less damaging kin, the fall webworm, Hyphantria cunea.

Jon Traunfeld of the University of Maryland extension service said those insects are probably done feeding, but their large nests are still visible in the branches.

They are unsightly but cause little damage, says a bulletin from the Maryland extension service.

Damage to the host plant is primarily aesthetic, since leaves are usually eaten late in the season when it is not normally a threat to the health of the tree, according to Weekend Gardener.

 Larvae chew on leaves and spin large, unsightly, dirty white webs over the ends of branches; sometimes several branch tips are enclosed by one web.

You can remove them with a stick or prune them out. No controls are necessary unless there is severe defoliation.

Posted by Susan Reimer at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Insects