Re: Re(2) Re:Stink Bugs
hi Moira
thanks a LOT. Its the best info I've had on the horrid bug. sometimes
knowing their life cycle is all thats necessary for orgnaic gardeners, and I
did find a lot of juveniles(although I did not know it was them at the time)
when clearing our overwintered Broad Beans. We do use Pyrethrum though so
thanks again.
Janet
Richard & Janet Blenkinship
Crete
janetble@otenet.gr
Moira wrote
> Hi Janet
> We certainly have them here, though not usually in great quantities ( I
> gather there is a parasitic wasp locally which helps keep them down). If
> they are the same species as ours (the green vegetable bug) the young
> are quite a different colour, being at different times orange, black or
> black with white spots, only at the last moult do they actually turn
> plain green and also grow wings.
>
> A few adults overwinter, mainly on weeds I think, but I have an idea I
> have read they may also hide under fallen leaves etc. They lay eggs on
> leaves of crop plants in spring. The eggs are in quite noticeable rafts
> and are yellow at first later turning orange. If you can find any of
> these rafts this is a good bottleneck in their lives to catch them out.
>
> The time to control them is obviously early in the spring. As the young
> don't fly, they are not to difficult to knock off and squash, but they
> often seem to congregate when very small in family parties (one
> raft's-worth maybe). When they do this I find a very small squirt of
> pyretherum from a spray bottle disposes of them with little
> environmental disturbance and I even gun down the adults in the same way
> if I can sneak up on them...
>
> Moira
>
> --
> Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
> Wainuiomata,
> New Zealand (astride the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
>
>
