Diva's a good cuc, I grew it last year.

1tilton,

Do you deal with cucumber beetles in your area and if so did you grow the Divas under covers?

Scott

I'm assuming you plan to apply the BT and pyrethrum to the silks on the corn ears, not the tassels on the top of the plant. If you are really planning to treat the top tassels, I doubt your plan will work.

Thanks for mentioning the Diva cucumbers. I've heard good things about the variety but haven't grown it. It reminds me that I should add them to an order soon.

I had cucumber beetles last summer. The yellow squash succumbed yet the zucchini costata romanesque to the right and the round yellow summer squash on the left did fine. I didn't see the beetles on them at all yet they were only a few feet away. I love the zuke variety (seed from Baker Creek). Round yellow squash was ok, prolific but just didn't seem to have great flavor.

Meanwhile, the cucumbers planted in early May never germinated (I went away and the garden didn't get watered for a couple of weeks.) I re-planted maybe 2nd week of June several varieties and all did fine. I think the cucumber beetles came earlier.

I didn't get a single cucumber last year; tried planting twice.

I'm getting Diva for this year as it's purportedly unattractive to the cucumber beetles - if that's not enough to deter them I suppose I'll try Anney's red dye method and get one of the wilt resistant cukes (County Fair or Little Leaf) for 2012.

But your battle preparations are making me uneasy about that plan - it sounds like you're bringing out the heavy artillery (Diva + row covers + trap crop + your other measures). So if you're preparing for war, I guess all I'm preparing for is a skirmish :)

Maybe I need to rethink my strategy.

Defrosted,

I need to stop drinking on weekends. Yes, plan to inject the BT and oil into the silks just about where they leave the ear using a 1 cc syringe. My apologies for being stupid.

Thanks

Scott

Hi Guys,
I got 635 lbs of Diva Cukes last year and They were covered with Cuke Beetles they didn't seem to kill them, of course they eventually succumbed and died , but that is natural and I am not positive that if I were more proactive,they perhaps could have produced more ...I don't know...besides just hanging around and being pests, I didn't see them do any actual damage....

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John

Nice picture. I wonder if cucumber wilt virus is less of an issue in northern areas? Anyone know?

The problem is the virus not really the beetles that carry it.

Thanks

Scott

We don't get either of those bugs up here, that I have seen. Lots of snow and cold in the winter seems to clear out many pests. But I would usually not plant cukes before June, too cold. My family keeps asking for corn and I may grow some again this year but it takes a lot of water, more than most plants and we usually get very little rain in the summer. I try and limit the thirsty plants in my garden.

Beautiful harvest photo, is that an artichoke?

Yes cuke beetles can kill the whole cuke vine up north if they transmit a virus that the vine is susceptible to. I used to lose all my squash and cukes to beetles, now I spray with Sevin and get a good harvest.

Row covers might help. You could put row covers over the ones you want to eat and leave a couple sacrifice vines out for the bugs to swarm on, then spray those vines to get all the bugs.

Our cold winters, here in eastern Washington, definitely kill off a lot of bugs! I have read that catmint is supposed to be good, planted near cucumbers, melons, pumpkins and other squash...as are radishes. I don't know if they'd help with your cucumber beetle, or not.

Jon- Beautiful picture of your harvest! What kind of grapes are those?

The name of the disease being bacterial wilt, no virus is involved. I do not know if the Detroit area is North by your standards, but definitely beetles will kill cucumbers. It used to be that one would get cukes from late June until late July, at which point the tomatoes would kick in and I would not care about the dead cukes. But lately it has been worse, the last two years I may have gotten only a dozen out of three plants. This year I will use tulle on them until late July.

I also agree with posters that say SVB entry points are all over a zuke, so wrapping will not work. This year I am going to put all eggs in a basket, and go with the method of BT injection in the vines by syringe. I convinced myself that I made mistakes in the past, injecting the hard vine stub at the base of the zucchini plant. I should inject in soft, hollow vines, high up in the plant, and let gravity take the solution down to where the larvae are.

Not only do the beetles carry the disease, but they also love the skin on many vine crops. I've had the skin of large watermelons completely devoured. They were still edible, but what ugly specimens!

Brook

Glib,

Explain how to mix BT and how much to use when injecting the stem of the vine?

Scott

HappyDay: Yeah, that is a funny looking Artichoke, I threw it in the picture to add some light green color, but it is strange looking ;-)

lavender_lass : I have no idea what kind of grapes they are, because I donate all of my veggies to the FoodBank,I usually never know the variety (because I don't know any better/about which are better ;-)

I just happen to remember buying the Cuke starts and they were Diva's (at least I remember something ;-)

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Lovely brassicas, Jon. The syringe method consists of injecting BT solution into the vine. It will certainly kill the larvae if it gets in contact with them. I have not been successful at it. I use a meat syringe from Walmart.

Last year I injected the hard stubby part of a zucchini bush. It was a fairly thorough job, injecting numerous times the same vine, but I did it only once, and I could see that often I was going through vine and spewing solution on the other side. A big SVB banquet ensued, with up to 7 larvae per vine.

This year I am hoping that injecting the hollow vines that branch from the hard stub is the way to go. Being hollow, they should hold a couple inches solution right above the stub, for long periods of time, and hopefully the solution will percolate and do its job. I used about twice the concentration on the bottle, which is the one I use for brassica.

I grew Diva, Diamant and Cool Breeze cucumbers last year, trellised up on 6 x 6 wire mesh. Growing on the ground in front of them were cantaloupe and watermelon plants. I had tons of cucumber beetles last year. They infested my cockscomb, they damaged the rose moss, they chewed up my Rose Zahara zinnias, when I mowed I had clouds of them rise up in front of the lawnmower. The only place I didn't have them, was in the cucumbers! They had very little damage (some of the later Diva cukes had skin blemishes, but they produced nearly nonstop until I pulled the vines out in the early fall.

I bet chickens would make short work of those beetles, but maybe the cukes too. Not sure. Something to consider...

I grew Diva and Lemon Cukes last year and had a lot of cucumber beetles. The vines succumbed to wilt one at a time, and the Divas died long before the Lemons.

I also lost all of my Black Beauty Zucchinis to wilt. Lumina Pumpkin and Sugar Baby Watermelon didn't seem to get the wilt despite having lots of beetles feeding on them. I also had some Coosa started late that didn't seem to get the wilt, but didn't produce much either.

I tried Diatomaceous earth, picking off adults by hand, and clove oil with red dye bait. I didn't see any obvious results from any of these measures.

It seemed to be a bad year in general for Cucurbits in my area.

my chickens only ate my tomaotes last year they left my cukes alone...

but i have Got to have a Great plan in motion soon.. last year worms were in them before ears even started to produce ears..

any suggestions on what to do to keep them safe this year.. i will have 10 to 12 100 ft rows.. so its like small scale corn farming! LOL

Krussow

I would suggest the following regimen for sweet corn:

1) spray with BT every three days once silking begins.
2) Inject the ear tip with combined BT-Corn oil (.5cc) once the tassels begin to turn brown.

Might also add pyrethrum spray if you wish.

Scott

quick question what is BT????

I did get everything out Late last year this year i hope to get it out on time for my zone!

I lucally did not have 1 japanesse beetle problem.. i hung a trap about 100 ft away from my garden low to the ground.. they swarmed it and the chickens swarmed anything not in the trap IT worked Great!! Just the dang worms on the corn

Floating row cover is very effective against cuke beetles. If the vines start to outgrow the covers, don't worry... just leave them on as long as you can, and it will probably be enough protection to break the feeding cycle so that they'll buzz off and go elsewhere. I haven't had a problem with them at all since I started using row covers.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Imperative blog

I forgot to mention that you don't need hoops for floating row cover either. Just lay it on top of the plants and weigh it down at the edges. Thus the moniker "Floating."

I spray my sweetcorn with carbaryl (Sevin) just after the tassels stop shedding pollen and the bees have left. Just one shot is all it takes and I don't have any ear worms.

I had the worst infestation of cucumber beetles ever last year. They did eventually kill the cuc vines. I'm going to try keeping them covered this time, as the Divas don't need bees.

For some reason, I only get the beetles in late summer. They attack the corn silks and dig into the ears, so I spray the silks with pyrethrin.

I grew Diva last year and didn't think it was any better than any other cuke. Low production too. I don't know what a cucumber beetle is, I don't think we have them in southern California.

Ok - It's time for the mid june update on my war against cucumber beetles.

1) Row covers with t-tape, plastic mulch, and Agribon-15 covers - working well without any signs of wilt. First cucumbers starting.
2) Sprayed on kaolin clay - working well without wilt - need to respray after rain. Growth somewhat slower but first fruit also setting.
3) Doing a better job preventing weeds that the cucumber beetls like to feed on. Saw a 2 beetles two weeks ago but none since.

As for the corn - My first crop planted from seedlings is now 6 feet high and about one week from picking. I have used nothing to see if the early crop is less effected by the corn ear worm. Will report.

I grew Diva for several years. Good production for me and good taste. Never had trouble with Cucumber beetles. I can also recommend the variety Rocky. Available from Johnny's. It's also a no pollination needed slicer, but it makes smaller baby cukes. I find that size to be better for me since I'm the only one in the house to eat them.
Susan
Not affiliated with Johnny's.

Here is the update from the war on duke beetles and corn ear worms.

Have now harvested three biweekly corn batches. The first, Seneca Arrowhead did well with minimal ear worm damage. One ear was attacked from the side by European corn borer and two were attacked via the silks by corn ear worm.

Yesterday I picked the first ears of WhiteOut again with minimal damage. The next variety to mature will be a Mirai hybrid and i will report on that. So far so good but the season is young and worm damage gets worse during the season.

The cucumbers under cover (Diva) had to be uncovered last week due to a massive aphid infestation that did not effect the uncovered plants. I will assume the difference is because we excluded natural predators. The plants are producing well. I have seen a few cucumber beetles on plants other than the cukes. The plants that were treated with kaolin clay and were uncovered are also doing well. I have discontinued the clay applications. All is good. Not sure whether the success of the crop is due to the extreme heat killing the bugs, the generally better job I've done this year keeping the food source weeds picked, the covers, the kaolin, or just pure luck. I am also using automated drip irrigation which may be yielding healthier plants this year.

Will report in monthly.