Stink bugs

[CLa]

I've just been canning everything that looks bad, had pizza last night with fresh carbon used as the sauce. Just peel them up make some pasta sauce good stuff. if they big enough, you can peel them pretty easily and still have a nice size mater for sandwich. But I agree, horribly annoying to deal with.

[Suze]

Growing millet as a catch/trap crop really does help a great deal. But it does need to be started early enough for it to get fairly tall and 'plume' before your tomatoes start to ripen. What those stink bugs want is the actual grain (seeds).

It's been my experience that if there are a couple of patches/stands of millet for the stink bugs to go to, they will preferentially choose it over tomatoes the majority of the time. You can either kill them when they are on the millet with a pesticide like sevin or just let them damage the millet.

[duajones]

the millet I have growing now should be large enough for my fall crop, hopefully it will help. Meanwhile, I tried something today that at least seems to kill them if you spray it directly on them. started off with some garlic barrier that I still had around 3 oz of. I mixed that in a quart spray bottle with water and sprayed some tomatoes and stink bugs directly. I did that a couple days ago and you could smell garlic walking through my back yard for the past couple days.Of course it didnt kill them. after reading about dr bonners soap , I added water back to the top of the spray bottle, only having around 4 oz or so left of the garlic mixture. I then added 2 tbsp of the soap and shook it well. I sprayed many stink bugs with it this afternoon and it appears to kill them. Not sure what it does to the plants, but will see in the next couple of days. Im at the point where I am ready to pull my plants as they are stink bug manufacturers at this point. anyone else tried the dr bonner soap? It is disheartening to pull nothing but badly damage fruit on a daily basis. Im glad they havent discovered my cherokee purple yet.

[CLa]

hey yeah, I have been using Dr. Bronners soap. The uncented stuff. I think if you can keep it down to 3 tbsp per gallon then it should not harm the plant. The dish washing liquid however wiped out half the foilage on only certain plants. and I think it left a residue on some of my tomatoes. Trying to decide if the bronners is doing any of that, but like my sungold and flamms, they look fine, no blemishes besides the stink bug damage. leaves look great, and I have nuked that plant with dr. bronners. But as I said before, I live near some farm land, and they keep coming, its hard to get them all where I am. I think if the millet really does attract them, then I will surely be doing that next year. Anyway I am pretty confident of using the castile soap such as Dr. Bronners. its the best for this use. As far as using soap goes, because it is pure natural oil soap. But I'm very interested in finding better ways to deal with stink bugs. I think if we can conquer that problem down here in the south, then we have it made. Thats the #1 problem here. Interesting how that works. God's way of equality? You can avoid them bugs in northern climates, but you don't have a long growing season like we do here. California? I wonder what the flaws are there, they have near a year round growing season in some parts. Of course we have the soil diseases everywhere, and blight and fungus problems are common in various places. But that can usually be overcome by having some variety in the garden. Stink bugs... they prefer some tomatoes over others, but if you have them like we do, then it is hard to find a clean tomato/

[Warren]

Originally Posted by Suze

What those stink bugs want is the actual grain (seeds).

So can't I just go to the pet store and buy the millet that they sell for pet birds?

also how bad do the stink bugs damage the toms? I am just seeing small shallow holes in the fruit. We they damage them beyond being able to eat them?

[duajones]

They say that they go after ripening fruit but in my case I have been finding them on baby tomatoes as well. If they get after the tomatoes when they are small, the fruit is ruined, disformed. I threw away probably 25 pounds of fruit yesterday.

[feldon30]

Stink bugs can get bad!! I won't eat these:


Tidwell German (bottom), Cherokee Purples (top)


One solution is not to pack the plants in quite so tightly. Stink bugs hide in the densest foliage.

[duajones]

those look like the last 50 plus tomatoes I have pulled. Picked another 18 this morning with none of them being what I would call edible. I have decided to start pulling plants, at least thin them out leaving a couple or so indeterminates maybe. Bummer

[feldon30]

I pulled 5 plants today hoping that it would open up the plants enough to save some Black Cherries that I want to bring with me to SETTFest.

[duajones]

I pulled 4 today and what a sight, I have a stink bug factory going on here. I sure hope better spacing will allow me to fight a better fight next spring

[creister]

Have you all tried using orange oil? 1 or 2 oz. per gallon of water? I have used it to great effect on killing fire ants. Howar Garrett aka The Dirt Doctor, also lists orange or citrus oil for heavy infestations. It is a solvent, so if you use it, start with 1oz./gallon and spray in the evening so as not to burn leaves. I have also used it for mites, (not great results) and 2 oz./gallon was too much for the leaves and got some burning.

[CLa]

Dr. Bronners, safe clean pure soap, kills the stink bugs.
But the problem is you have to be persistent. Stink bugs can destroy a tomato in one single day at any point throughout the season. You can't get rid of them all, they will be somewhere else in the yard, or in someone else's yard, or in the neighboring farmland. The millet idea sounds good because it (theoretically) is a dominate attractant. And if the bugs like something else more then this may actually work.

Tomatoes with stink bug damage. Yeah Feldon, those look pretty bad. Not sure if I would 'can' those. You could though, just need to remove the skin along with the first 8th of an inch inner flesh at least. Stink bug damage usually does not run any deeper than that. If the tomato is in any worse shape deeper in, then it would be just rot damage or worms or something else. I've even seen ants creating a home in my maters. What I need is a climate controlled greenhouse How does 'Nature Sweet' induce pollination in their huge greenhouses?.

[houseodessey]

I have been hand picking my stinkbugs to the tune of around a dozen per day, sometimes more if I go out more than once. I've noticed that the green ones seem to stay on my pole beans and the brown ones like to hide in the tight folds of my corn's blades/leaves? so that makes them a fairly easy mark. I've only had one damaged tomato, so far and I don't know whether it was stink bug or something else. Hopefully hand picking diligently will do the trick.

Has anyone noticed how all of the nasty bugs (SB's, cuke beetles, leafhoppers) are shifty and immediately start trying to run or hide while the beneficials (lady bugs, preying mantids) stay put? I've begun killing bugs based on their behavior. If they try to run and I'm unsure of their purpose, I smush them. If they're brave, I let them stay for the time being and then google them later. For the most part, this has worked out well thus far.

[Tomatovator]

I'm just curious as to why (if there are insecticides that kill these bugs) one wouldn't just spray them and kill them. Is it a personal decision that keeps people from using these sprays or do they just not work? I was walking around at HD yesterday and saw 2 sprays that claim to kill stink bugs. I do not have a stink bug problem but if I did I think I'd want to zap them with something.

[CLa]

Well, the problem with some of those insecticides is they have a residue that either takes time to break down or become dilute. Some of them have up to a week wait time. All this stuff has been proven to be only moderately safe, but only because it supposedly becomes dilute enough, or broken down. And if it breaks down in may be just fine. But I have read in some cases some bad info on these insecticides. I don't like to hear bad info, If the truth of a substance is that shady, I don't want to mess with it if I can find another solution. Malathion by the way supposedly breaks down into something even more toxic. This is the last thing you want to use in your garden I would think. Seven liquid for spraying is something I have used, but I'm not sure it does such a good job on those stink bugs. Give us the names on the ones your talking about. I rarely see any claiming to kill stink bugs. I'd like to do some research on them.