Re: Squash bugs (not to be confused with borers)

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George Heyne
Rochester, Mn.

Kevin Stilley wrote:

Squash bugs (not to be confused with vine borers) and too little attention on my part (not getting up shade screens, fungus, etc.) have just about ended my season.  I have 3 little guys hanging on (about 100 - 150 lbs each) but one is on a vine that has no leaves and on which all the secondaries have rotted away, one is horribly deformed to the degree that it is uglier than sin, and one is growing on a tertiary that I missed and didn't get cut off. I'm curious if my problem with squash bugs is out of the ordinary for southern growers.  Despite my treatment of the plants with a couple of different insecticides (Sevin and MVPII) nothing seemed to get rid of the squash bugs.  I would spray with Sevin and the squash bugs would just keep going about their business as usual. I would do a follow-up spraying and they would laugh at me.  I would spray again and they would threaten to harm my children if I didn' quit annoying them.  Those little guys literally sucked the life right out of my plants and I do not believe my vines can possibly recover from this sad state.  In fact, I believe the situation serious enough that I am planning on yanking my plants this week and replanting a Fall crop of something else. I have never heard anyone on the list complain about squash bugs (mainly what I hear is squash vine borer, cuc beetles, and of course my own previous complaints about turtles, water-mocassins, and armadillos.  Do any of you have this kind of problem with squash bugs. KS