Colorado Potato Beetle - A Early Garden Pest
by John Yazo
Colorado potato beetles are a very common insect to the home garden and can get out of control very rapidly. They can be a problem not only to potatoes but to eggplant, peppers and tomatoes as well. The beetles body in it's adult stage is yellow with black stripes with a orange color head with black spots. The larva of the colorado potato beetle are a orange red color with black spots. Both the adult and the larva will feed on potato leaves and other crops.
The colorado potato beetle will find shelter in the soil for the winter months and become active in the spring when the temperatures start to rise. They start eating on weeds and will start eating early potato foliage as it emerges or even before. A colorado potato beetle will burrow into the ground and start eating foliage before it even emerges.
The eggs of the colorado potato beetle is a orange-yellow color and the female will lay eggs in batches of about two dozen at a time. she will lay about five hundred or more eggs in a four to five week time period. The eggs will hatch in four to nine days and the larva will start eating leaves.
A full grown colorado potato beetles larva when full grown will burrow into the ground to pupate. This process takes about five to ten days. Once the adult beetle emerges it will start laying eggs in a few days. The time it takes a colorado potato beetle to develop from egg to adult can be as little as twenty one days. There can be as many as three generations of beetle in one year of time.
Crop rotation is very useful in the control of these beetles along with beneficial insects like the predatory stink bug and parasite flies.
Companion planting to create an environment to attract birds and other predators that will help defend the plants from the colorado potato beetle. Organic insect control is a natural and beneficial way to control pests in your garden
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