Cucumber Beetle
These tiny beetles wreak a lot of havoc!
If you grow a vegetable garden, one pest you should keep an eye out for is the cucumber beetle. The larvae of cucumber beetles will attack plant roots and stems in spring. They will feed on asparagus, beans, eggplants, potatoes, cucumbers, peas, squash, tomatoes, melons, corn, fruit trees…just to name a few.
There are more than 270 different plants that cucumber beetles will attack. If that wasn’t destructive enough, the adults also transmit bacterial diseases, such as bacterial mosaic and bacterial wilt, to your plants. They carry the bacterial diseases in their digestive tract. This is not the limit as they will attack more than 270 plants in 29 families including flowers and ornamentals! These bacterial diseases actually overwinter in the beetles’ digestive tract. You shoud begin inspecting your plants for beetles twice a week in spring.
