Free good bug guide for the garden

Looking for a way to ID those beneficial in your garden? This FREE printable pocket guide is a great tool to do that for you. Downloadable and printable these quick reference cards will be a big help in the garden, keeping gardeners from killing the good guys. A must for organic gardeners! FREE NATURAL ENEMIES GUIDE

Ladybugs, ladybugs, ladybugs...

A massive ladybird beetle invasion has taken place in Colorado.

Catnip driving away pest ladybugs

From the Agricultural Research Service, USDA Multicolored Asian lady beetles are appreciated by farmers and home gardeners alike--until the pest-eating insects decide to spend the winter indoors. The beetle, Harmonia axyridis, becomes a nuisance insect upon entering homes to escape the cold, sometimes in huge numbers. When threatened, it releases a yellow liquid that, while nontoxic, smells foul and produces stains. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have sought to develop beetle-friendly methods of keeping the helpful predators outside where they belong. Most recently, ARS entomologist Eric Riddick and colleagues in Stoneville, Miss., in collaboration with ARS natural product chemist Kamal Chauhan at Beltsville, Md., tested compounds in catnip oil that naturally repel the beetles, causing them to fly off, stop crawling, move back or turn away. In studies at the ARS Biological Control of Pests Research Unit in Stoneville, 95 percent of adult male and female lady beetles altered their course upon encountering filter paper impregnated with the highest of three doses of the catnip compound nepetalactone. The researchers chose nepetalactone because it had previously been shown to repel some species of cockroaches, flies, termites and mosquitoes. They also tested nootkatone (a grapefruit extract), iridomyrmecin (another catnip oil compound), and other plant-based repellents, but none performed as well as nepetalactone. Turning away--more so than the three other avoidance behaviors--characterized the beetles' response to the compound, report Riddick and colleagues in a recent issue of the Bulletin of Insectology (http://www.bulletinofinsectology.org/pdfarticles/vol61-2008-081-090riddick.pdf). Ultimately, such observations could lead to a "push-pull strategy," combining repellents that deter lady beetles from entering a home's cracks and crevices with traps that lure the predators to an attractant for collection and release elsewhere. According to Riddick, the push-pull strategy offers a friendlier alternative to insecticide spraying and preserves the insects' usefulness as efficient predators of aphids, scale and other soft-bodied arthropods that damage plants.

Ladybugs - Should you buy them?

With spring arriving many gardeners are looking to be more “green” or even organic. There are many ways to do this but one area many are interested in is pest management. Unfortunately people’s good efforts are not always so eco-friendly. From the time we are young we are told that ladybugs (ladybird beetles) are good, and they are! They are excellent to have in the garden, but the real question is, “should you buy them and release them?”

Buying ladybugs… is it a good idea?

First thing you should think about is where they are coming from. Almost all “red” ladybugs are harvested from the wild. In the Spring, as the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys warm up the ladybugs (Hippodamia convergens) migrate to the Sierra Nevada foothills. There, they congregate in large numbers on the forest floors. Businesses then come along and scoop up the beetles, removing them from their native habitat. They are then taken to coolers for storage until they are to be shipped. So, why is this an issue?

• It removes ladybugs from their native habitat.


• Once released most will not stick around, they leave, providing little or no control.


• A percent of the ladybugs may be parasitized by a small wasp, Dinocampus coccinellae. It develops as an internal parasite of lady beetles and kills them. Research has shown this to be an issue. A study found on average 8% of the ladybugs purchased by researchers carried parasites.*


• Microsporidia, a disease of ladybugs, was also detected in individuals from 13 of 22* shipments in these studies.
  

So by releasing infected ladybird beetles you may be spreading these parasites and diseases. It’s much more effective and eco-friendly to attract them in naturally with organically** grown plants like, dill, yarrow, sunflowers, angelica, and other assorted flowering plants. If you want to do a release of beneficial insects, release laboratory reared ones. An excellent option to ladybugs are green lacewings. The larva of green lacewings will do an excellent job of feeding on plant pests such as aphids, mealybug crawlers, scale crawlers and other garden pests. They are commercially available from Beneficial Insectary.

*Natural enemies of the convergent lady beetle, Hippodamia convergens Guérin-Méneville: Their inadvertent importation and potential significance for augmentative biological control. S. Bjørnson Department of Biology, Saint Mary’s University, 923 Robie Street, Halifax, NS, Canada B3H 3C3 Abstract
** Organically grown plants will not have harsh pesticide residue on them that can kill the beneficials. They will also not have systemic pesticides inside of them that can not be washed off.

Growing a Greener World Podcast

Here is my latest guest appearance on the Growing a Greener World with Joe Lamp’l podcast. We talk about some of those summer garden pests and how to deal with them. Be sure to swing by Joe's site at http://www.joegardener.com/

And for those that missed it, here is my first appearance on the show where we talk about attracting beneficial insects, Japanese beetle control, beneficial nematodes & new biodegradable planting pots.

Go D'hara

Pesticides and How They Impact Biological Control Agents

Interested in learning how pesticide impact beneficial insect and predatory mites? Both http://www.koppert.com/ and http://www.biobest.ca/ have tables in their side-effects portions of their websites. You will need to know the active ingredient in the pesticide and the scientific name of the beneficial. Additionally Koppert has added a mobile website, http://www.koppert.mobi/ so while in the field you can learn about pesticide compatibility.

Go D'Hara