How To Get Rid Of Potato Beetles

Control of potato beetles can fail also if insecticides are not use at the correct time. They are most effective when the larva is nearly fully grown and the correct amount of pesticide is used. It is also very important to see that all the plants in an area are treated, as any omissions could find the beetles using that particular area to profligate. Insecticide should also be used only when needed and not indiscriminately. Potato plants can maintain their yield even when they lose thirty percent of their foliage. There are birds and other parasitic flies and bugs that can also control these beetles.

There is also another quite back breaking method of controlling potato beetles. Hand pick adult beetles and beetles that have not fully developed. This will prevent further spread of the beetles and is known to be a very effective method of controlling potato beetles. An area or field by field approach is the best for such activity or even as far as pesticide rotation is concerned.

Genetically enhanced potato plants are also available which have an inbuilt resistance to attack by potato beetles. Other methods suggested are crop rotation and the growing of trap crops.

Controlling Potato Beetles With Insecticide

On commercial farms insecticides are the main method for controlling the beetle population. But probably because of their constantly evolving, the beetle seems to develop resistance to the pesticide and future generations are known to survive such treatment. Potato beetles have natural enemies like fungus which do seem to restrict them and pest control companies have developed formulations that can be used in conventional pesticide sprayers to spray these fungus on to the affected plants and thus help to control the beetles. Other suggested means of controlling the potato beetle is to rotate the pesticides used and find different classes of them, so that the potato beetle is not able to develop resistance to all pesticides.

Potato Beetles

The potato beetle has a bright yellow body with 5 stripes in brown down the body. It is generally about 10 mm long and feeds on the leaves of the potato crop. Potato beetles are also quite unfriendly with tomato and egg plant crops and are therefore a pest that must be eradicated from your farm or kitchen garden. These beetles are very prolific and the female may lay 800 eggs at a time which may be found on the underside of the leaves of the plant affected. It is estimated that in each season three generations of potato beetles can occur and therefore infestations of these beetles are to be viewed very seriously. These beetles are known to completely kill off plants, and even when they do not, they severely affect the yield.