No shortage of active garden pests

Garden pests are active. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of pesky garden insects this year. When you are out and about in your garden, make sure to check for insects feeding and take action as necessary.

Some problematic insects we have been seeing in gardens across the area include stalk borers, stinkbugs and squash bugs. If you have noticed vegetable or garden plants suddenly wilting for no apparent reason, look for stalk borers. Though there are other insects that bore into vegetable plants (squash vine borer, for example), this insect can feed on a wider variety of species. Usually, the whole plant wilts, but sometimes only a branch is affected.

If you look at affected plants closely, a small hole will be present in the side of the stem. Splitting the stem will reveal the larva. Some gardeners slit the stem, remove the larva and wrap the stem back together. Heat and wind often render this operation unsuccessful. Fortunately, damage usually is sporadic, with only a plant here and there affected. There is one generation a year, so once the first attack is over, the problem doesn't reoccur. Insecticides are ineffective against this insect.

Another pest is the stinkbug. Stinkbugs are the shield-shaped insects that emit a foul odor when disturbed. Damage from these bugs will cause tomatoes to have golden-yellow, pink or white spots on the fruit. The stinkbug injures the fruit by using its mouth parts to probe. Color development is affected where probing occurs, which results in the off color, cloudy spots. Enough feeding will cause the spots to spread and give the tomatoes a golden color. If you look closely, you can see the pinprick-sized puncture wounds in the middle of the spots. Hard, whitish, callous tissue develops beneath the skin at the area of wounding. By the time spots are noticed, the stinkbugs are often gone, so control is impossible. Affected tomatoes are safe to eat.

Finally, the ever-so-aggravating squash bugs are the gray, shield-shaped bugs that feed on squash and pumpkin plants. If you have had problems with these insects in the past, you know they are almost impossible to control when mature. This is because the squash bugs have a hard body that an insecticide has difficulty penetrating. Spraying when the insects are small is important. Because squash bugs feed by sucking juice from the plant, only insecticides that directly contact the insect will work.

General use insecticides such as permethrin (Bug-B-Gon Multi-Purpose Garden Dust, Green Thumb Multipurpose Garden and Pet Dust, Bug-No-More Yard and Garden Insect Spray, Eight Vegetable, Fruit and Flower Concentrate, Garden, Pet and Livestock Insect Control, Lawn and Garden Insect Killer), malathion, rotenone and methoxychlor provide control if a direct application is made to young, soft-bodied squash bugs. This means that you must spray or dust the underside of the leaves, because this is where the insects live.

In the Southwind Extension District, I will be working with the horticulture programming. I plan to spend Thursdays (beginning Aug. 4) in the Fort Scott office and look forward to meeting the residents of Bourbon county.