Stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs like August weather and ripening fruit
Consperse stink bugs are the most common stink bugs in the Sacramento area. Courtesy UCIPM, photo by Jack Kelly Clark
When tomatoes hit their peak in summer, so do bugs that like to feed on them.
Right now, Sacramento gardeners are seeing a bunch of real stinkers – stink bugs and their close cousins, leaffooted bugs. Gardeners see them scrambling over ripening tomatoes, especially in late afternoon or early evening. They like to dine on other juicy fruit, too, such as peaches, pears and pomegranates.
Both stink bugs and leaffooted bugs inject their long “tongues” into fruit and suck out as much juice as possible. In the process, they leave behind yucky-tasting residue and telltale pinpricks on the fruit’s skin.
Stink bugs are shaped like little gray or brown shields. Mature adults can fly but younger stinkers tend to just hop, which makes them easier to catch.
Brown marmorated stink bugs (BMSB) have gotten a lot of recent publicity because of their potential threat; they like to eat almost everything and have few if any natural predators in California. Spotted in several Sacramento area neighborhoods, this invasive insect from Asia is voracious and attacks vegetables and ornamental plants as well as fruit.
BMSB likes to lay its eggs (that look like little pearls) on the back of sunflower leaves. That makes sunflowers a good sentinel plant; check sunflower leaves regularly and when eggs are spotted, pick and destroy the leaf. That can prevent the appearance of more BMSB.
Much more common in Sacramento is the consperse stink bug. This stink bug looks a lot like BMSB. Its most visible difference is its antennae; BMSB have white stripes, consperse do not.
Parasitic wasps usually keep consperse stink bug populations from exploding out of control. Consperse stink bugs are relatively slow moving and easily caught; they hop down when disturbed.
Pesticides are not very effective on stink bugs, and not necessary. Instead, spray tomatoes with insecticidal soap (1 tablespoon mild dish detergent or liquid soap to 1 quart water) if stink bugs are seen.
Or use the bucket method: Place under the tomato plant a bucket or dishpan half filled with water and a teaspoon of dish detergent (the soap breaks the water’s surface tension). Give the plant a gentle shake; stink bugs will fall into the water and drown. (They can’t swim.)
For more on stink bugs and control: https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/GARDEN/VEGES/PESTS/stinkbug.html
Also appearing now are two species of leaffooted bugs. This insect gets its nickname from the leaf-like extensions on its back legs. The nymphs generally stick together for protection. The adults can fly and are much more mobile.
Common in Sacramento are inch-tall leaffooted bugs that have little zigzag stripes. That’s Leptoglossus zonatus. Smaller and darker are another leaffooted species: Leptoglossus occidentalis.
Populations of both species tend to swell in midsummer.
“Overwintering leaffooted bugs can lay over 200 eggs during a two-month period in the spring,” say the UC Cooperative Extension pest notes. “Nymphs emerge from the eggs about 1 week after being deposited, after which they develop into adults in 5 to 8 weeks. Adults are long-lived and can lay eggs over an extended period, so the population can consist of all life stages by late June. At this time, overwintering adults are still alive as the first generation of their offspring develop into adults.”
Throughout the summer, two to three generations of leaffooted bugs may be coexisting in the garden at the same time. All of them will attack tomatoes.
The bucket method works on leaffooted bugs, too. They tend to scramble away from people, so slip the container under the tomatoes, then make motions from above or gently shake the vine’s trellis. The bugs will hop off the fruit – and right into the water.
For more on identifying and combating leaffooted bugs: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74168.html
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Food in My Back Yard Series
May 13: Your plants can tell you more than any calendar can
May 6: Maintain soil moisture with mulch for garden success
April 29: What's (already) wrong with my tomato plants?
April 22: Should you stock up on fertilizer? (Yes!)
April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers
April 8: When to plant summer vegetables
April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths
March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth
March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space
March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds
March 4: Potatoes from the garden
Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later
Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space
Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants
Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting
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Garden Checklist for week of May 18
Get outside early in the morning while temperatures are still cool – and get to work!
* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.
* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.
* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.
* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. Transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.
* Plant dahlia tubers.
* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.
* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.
* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.
* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.
* Are birds picking your fruit off trees before it’s ripe? Try hanging strips of aluminum foil on tree branches. The shiny, dangling strips help deter birds from making themselves at home.
* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.
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