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Re: Mean Ugly Bugs on my Tomatoes!

Hi Julie,

> I believe a few weeks ago a post was put out about these bugs I'm now seeing
> in my garden.  They're about 1 inch long, greasy grey and wedge shaped with an
> orange "V" on their back.  Their legs are flat, like spatulas, or leaves.
> They're bodies are relatively flat, too.  I believe they may be related to
> stink bugs...I thought they were squash bugs, but after seeing a photo of one
> they're definitely different.

They sound like the Leaffooted Bug, /Leptoglossus phyllopus./  It's range
includes the southern US.  It feeds on bean, orange, pea, peach, pecan, potato
and tomato.

The triangular patch you saw is common to all true bugs.  Like most true bugs,
including squash and stink bugs, they have piercing mouths, inject saliva and
draw out partially digested cell sap.  Yuck eh?  Not to malign all true bugs,
some of them are predators of garden pests.

> Despite their horrid appearance and mean disposition, they don't seem to be
> doing anything to my garden other than sitting on my tomatoes and scaring the
> **** out of me when they fly in my face... I haven't seen any damage to
> anything (I currently have squash, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant,
> swiss chard, and cattle beans).  Does anybody know what these guys are and are

They look so innocent looking sitting there, hardly moving ... but they may be
feeding.  We have a very similar species up here in southern Canada, the Cedar
Bug as it's locally known.  Same spatula-like legs.  Anyway, they congregate on
houses in the fall, looking for a warm place to overwinter and invariably some
end up inside the house.  Other than their predeliction for flying at you and
sometimes landing in your hair (! ... searching out the heat I guess) they are
pretty docile and slow moving creatures.  I thought them quite innocent until I
wondered what they were living on ... and then noticed that they occaisionally
visited the houseplants.  A close look showed the mouthpieces, usually folded up
under the chest, inserted into the plant!  They got away with it so long because
they cause so little damage ... their primitive systems don't seem to require
much to survive.

> they potential pests I should really be worried about?  Or should I just live
> with them?  I hate to spray poison, it really goes against my core to poison
> living things, pests or not.  And I enjoy so many bees, spiders, ladybugs, and
> mantises it breaks my heart to think I might kill them... but these nasty bugs
> are reproducing and I don't know what to do.  Help please!  All ideas and
> thoughts are appreciated.

If there aren't scads of them and they don't seem to be causing any damage I
would keep an eye on them but otherwise not worry too much.  You can always hand
pick them, they are easy to catch, yes?  Something I haven't done but might be
worth trying is using a small hand held vacuum to go around your tomatoes,
sucking up the individual bugs.  Do that a few times and the population will be
knocked back quite a bit.  They only have one generation per year, so you
should see lots more after that.  I agree with you about poisons, they are to be
used as a last resort.  If worse does come to worse and the damage becomes
intolerable, the recommended organic control is dusting the plants with
sabadilla or pyrethrum.

> Thanks in advance,
> Julie Sasser
> Central TX Zone 8
> marcesent@msn.com

Good luck Julie!

   ____________________
  |                    |
  |     Bob Carter     | Kootenay Bay, BC, Canada
  |  bcarter@awinc.com | Zone 6b
  |____________________|


Polymer physicists are into chains.

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