Has this worked to get rid of cucumber beetles?

[shelleybean]

Pulled up an old thread from 2007 about cucumbers and there is an idea there from feldon about how to get rid of cucumber beetles. Combine mashed up cucumber peel and Sevin dust in a yellow SOLO cup! I have a lot of cucumber beetles this season and was thinking of trying this. I'd have to put the cups way into the raised beds, probably inside the cages the cucumbers are growing on to make sure the dog doesn't get to them. Wondering if anyone has tried this and if so, how well did it work? I like this idea because it doesn't bother the bees.

[linzelu100]

I don't use chemicals like Sevin so I can't say how that method works. I use DE sprinkled all over the plant (reapply when it rains) and once the cuke beetles walk over the powder it gets under their shell and cuts them. It works for me, I just get lazy about applying it when I need too.

[shelleybean]

That sounds good but I'm seeing 95% of the cucumber beetles in the actual blossoms so I can't really sprinkle anything in there. I have 16 cucumber plants and they're about seven feet tall so that would be a heck of a lot of sprinkling and I don't think I could reach the very tops of the plants. I don't like to use Sevin either but this is a last resort for me. If I just saw a few I wouldn't worry so much but in the last two weeks I've seen hundreds of them and when I see them, all I can think about is Bacterial Wilt. I'd really like to find a solution that will only affect the cucumber beetles and protect the bees. Thanks for the idea.

[rockyonekc]

I bought some tayuya root powder to use as an attractant in a trap using seven. I haven't seen any cucumber beetles yet this year so I haven't built any traps to be able to comment on the effectiveness. I had swarms of spotted cucumber beetles last summer. Thousands of them. Do a search on tayuya powder. Not a lot of info out there though.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4 Beta

[tjg911]

Originally Posted by shelleybean

That sounds good but I'm seeing 95% of the cucumber beetles in the actual blossoms so I can't really sprinkle anything in there. I have 16 cucumber plants and they're about seven feet tall so that would be a heck of a lot of sprinkling and I don't think I could reach the very tops of the plants. I don't like to use Sevin either but this is a last resort for me. If I just saw a few I wouldn't worry so much but in the last two weeks I've seen hundreds of them and when I see them, all I can think about is Bacterial Wilt. I'd really like to find a solution that will only affect the cucumber beetles and protect the bees. Thanks for the idea.

there are some BW resistant varieties, i only grow county fair now as the CB kill all other varieties. if you do a search here you'll find threads where i mention different varieties, can't recall off the top of my head the names. there aren't many that are BW resistant.

tom