Forgo Butterfly Flowers if You Want Good Fall Garden

Forgo Butterfly Flowers if You Want Good Fall Garden

After growing Ageratum (Ageratum houstonianum : Bluemink, flossflower, garden Ageratum, blueweed) for a fall garden for several years, I finally put together the relationship of the Ageratum flowers, Hawaiian beet webworm moth Spoladea recurvalis, and terrible caterpillar infestation of chard, eggplants, tomatoes, potatoes, spinach, and amaranth in my fall garden. The adult moths were attracted to the Ageratum (see picture of adult on Ageratum at link below). Then they mated on my place and the moths laid their eggs on various plants listed above in my vegetable garden and the hatching caterpillers proceeded to eat them up. Infestation lasted from June through November.

I decided I liked my fresh vegetables more, so now I pull up every Ageratum I find. I am taking a food source for the adults out of the loop and stopping the reproductive cycle on my place. The horrible fall caterpiller infestation from Hawaiian beet webworm moth larvae no longer happens.

This moth is found world-wide in North America, Hawaii, southeast Asia, Australia, and Africa.

Flowers that attract butterflies and moths can lead to their larvae eating up vegetable garden plants nearby ...... so gardeners everywhere should beware.

The larvae of the Hawaiian beet webworm moth have the curious habit of folding over part of an eggplant leaf, cutting it off from main part of leaf, and riding inside the folded leaf to chard planted below to then eat on the chard.  Each morning when the larvae are present I pick up folded bits of leaves and either kill the larvae or feed them to pond fish.  I do not know if this habit is just that or an attempt to get to a food liked better below. 


Adrian R. Lawler, Ph.D.,  (C) 2011 --

See :http://bugguide.net/node/view/9731/bgimage?from=24

American Bird Grasshopper Eats Peas out of Pods

American Bird Grasshopper Eats Peas out of Pods

Periodically in late spring when I am harvesting pole sugar snap peas, or in summer while picking black-eyed peas (California No. 5 cowpea) , I find pods with the peas eaten out of them. Bite marks on the pods indicate side-cutting grasshoppers, rather than mice or birds. Occasionally I find a large flying grasshopper nearby. This grasshopper has been identified as the American bird grasshopper, Schistocerca americana (Drury).

In 2010 overnight I had most of my maturing sugar snap peas eaten out of their pods by these grasshoppers. Apparently a large number of the grasshoppers flew in during the night to do their damage. The next day I picked all the remaining peas so I would get some. The next morning I checked the peas and found no obvious further damage to the foliage of the peas. It looks like the grasshoppers were after the almost mature green seeds rather than pea leaves, and not after the fully mature and hardened (dried) seed peas.

In black-eyed peas they ate the immature peas out of the pods.

Free-flying adults normally avoid low-growing crops such as vegetables, but pods of tall pea and black-eye pea vines are readily eaten on.

It is suggested that gardeners in the range of these grasshoppers keep their pea crops picked daily so there are few pods on the vines with maturing peas left for the grasshoppers to get at night. Or one could have the vines growing low to the ground.

Adrian R. Lawler, Ph.D.,  (C)  2011 --

See article:   

 http://www.simplykitchengarden.com/vegetablepests/231.html

Armadillos Killed by Overheating

Armadillos Killed by Overheating

Several times due to health problems I have not been able to check my armadillo trap early in the morning. Later in the day, if it is hot and sunny, I have found the trapped armadillo dead in the trap, apparently from getting overheated. The dark skin must absorb heat well, and they must not be able to cool down much, if any, via sweating or panting or ?. Normally armadillos are active only at night and early in the mornings, and during the heat of the day they are in their burrows which are in cool earth and usually hidden under things like brush piles, logs, etc.

This observation may lead to an easier way to control them. Hot air, steam, or another source of heat could be put down their burrows to either force them out of their burrows, or kill them.

Adrian R. Lawler,  (C) 2011 --
　
　

Dragonflies Eat Winged Termites & Fire Ants

Dragonflies Eat Winged Termites & Fire Ants

Several times over the years I have noticed tens to hundreds of dragonflies feeding in various areas over land. Upon closer inspection sometimes I noticed they were feeding on the winged forms of termites or fireants during a swarm, some flying close to the ground to catch the insects shortly after they started flight from high points in the grass or weeds. This is just another reason that dragonflies benefit humans.

Adrian R. Lawler,  (C) 2011 --

Control Little Green Herons

Control Little Green Herons

The Little Green heron (Butorides virescens) is a bad pond nuisance heron in my area. They can land on objects near the pond surface, including floating plants, to fish. They will fish all the mosquitofish (added to keep mosquitoes under control) out of livestock watering troughs, and rainwater storage barrels, etc., and unless the farmer/owner constantly replaces the mosquitofish, these birds end up causing a bad public health hazard by removing the fish that help keep mosquitoes under control. These birds can thus increase the danger from West Nile virus and other mosquito-borne diseases.

I suspect they clean out small pools and ponds all around, leading to mosquito and disease problems for humans and other animals. I consider them a much greater danger to humans than other fish-eating birds because they endanger human life and keep on causing the extra work of constantly stocking out mosquitofish. They are hard to defend against.

Any bird netting used on a pond or tank to exclude them MUST be at least a bird's head length plus neck length away from the water because they will stick their heads through some larger mesh netting (1.25" bar mesh) to fish in a pond or tank. They can learn to land on bird netting to use their weight to get netting closer to water in order to fish through netting mesh. These birds can also learn to use bread or crackers, etc. to attract fish within striking distance.

I also suspect that some of these birds have changed their fishing habits to now fish mostly in man-promoted ponds, water troughs, barrels, etc. They are becoming more dependant on man's water activities, and easy fish to catch in small bodies of water.

In some catfish farming areas cormorants have become so numerous (from feeding on the channel catfish) that catfish losses can be 20-30 %. Catfish farmers are now allowed to shoot cormorants at their fish farms under an order issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in March 1998.

I believe we need to kill those little green herons that have learned to fish out small ponds and watering troughs, etc., before they train others of their kind to fish the same way and keep increasing our exposure to mosquito-borne diseases. It is a public health matter now, with human lives threatened by some of these birds.

Adrian R. Lawler, Ph.D. ,  (C) 2011 --

Downy Woodpeckers Eat Pecans

Downy Woodpeckers Eat Pecans

Last 20 + years .......... Downy woodpeckers have been observed pecking holes in papershell pecans, aka Mahan, or aka Mississippi Giant pecans to eat. The shell is thin enough on these pecans for these small woodpeckers to easily penetrate. Only a few Stuart pecans were found to be also pecked by the downy woodpeckers. No other local woodpeckers were seen eating pecans.

During the fall, after the pecan nut husks dry and curl back, you can hear the downys pecking on the papershell pecans a good part of the day. Since this observation has been seen and heard for many years, it is suggested that downys in pecan-growing areas may either normally seek out pecans to eat, or this practice is being passed down from generation to generation in my area.

Since there are larval insects in the husks of the pecans, it is possible the downys were initially after these insects, broke through the shell while pecking for insects, liked the pecan taste, and then thereafter purposely pecked pecans for the pecan meat (and not the insects).

Peck holes are up to about 15 mm in diameter (N = 10), usually oval or round in shape, and almost always in the proximal half of the nut (attached end of nut).

Adrian R. Lawler, Ph.D.,  (C) 2011 -- 

Flood out Cutworms

Flood out Cutworms

Nov, 2011 ..... This fall the cutworms have been especially bad. They ate up all my sprouting turnip green plants, most of my rutabaga, and a lot of my lettuce. Some of my garden plantings are in raised containers as old coolers, washing machine tubs, etc. For those I have found that flooding the containers can cause the cutworm larvae to move or surface so I can find them, and destroy them. Other plants like collards, cabbage, kohlrabi, lettuce, etc. are planted inside plastic collars cut from 2-liter soda bottles. These plantings can easily be flooded to find and remove cutworm larvae from inside the plastic collar.

In addition to enabling one to find cutworm larvae, the collars also allow one to quickly water individual plants by pouring water inside the collar, and to conserve water by just adding water to the collars, instead of the whole container area.

The cutworm larvae appear to be around later this year ...... because of warming trend??

Adrian R. Lawler,   (C) 2011 --

Mice Eat Mud Dauber Larvae

Mice Eat Mud Dauber Larvae

Nov, 2011 ....... Somehow mice have gotten into my shop, one was caught in a live trap and numerous droppings the correct size for mice were found. One day I went into shop and it looked like a dirt storm everywhere because of all the dirt covering much of the shop. Mice had apparently torn up the mud dauber nests on inside walls of shop to eat the wasp larvae inside, and the dirt from torn up nests covered a great deal of the shop. I've lived in same place about 40 years, and this is the first time I have seen this happen.

Adrian R. Lawler,  (C)  2011 --