How to Get Bugs Off Your Potato Plants
The potato plant, like most food plants, has to contend with harmful insects that can destroy the crop. Several types of bugs can harm the potato, including potato tuberworms, leafhoppers, and aphids. However, according to the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, the most prominent of these predators is the Colorado potato beetle. This bug feeds on the plant's leaves, affecting the nutritional supply of the potato. Because the potato beetle builds up resistance to pesticides quickly, it's difficult to stop their proliferation. Combating insects like these requires a consistent approach. If you follow the appropriate steps, however, you can rid your plants of these intruders in no time. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
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Keeping Bugs off Your Potatoes
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Tidy up around the potatoes, removing all trash out of the garden so bugs will have nowhere to hide until the spring. Bring in ladybugs, stinkbugs, or other natural predators to the potato beetle to limit its effect on your crop. Although these predator bugs will not harm the plan or humans, they will eat the bugs threatening the plant.
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Buy a pair of gloves and take the bugs off of the plant by hand. Deposit the bugs in a used container filled with insecticide to ensure they don't escape or breed in the can. Throw the bugs away. If you don't approve of this approach, use a more natural method. Use other plants, such as green beans or coriander, as a more humane way to ward off the insects---beetles hate green beans.
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Use insecticide strategically, as the beetle hides itself under the dirt for weeks shielding itself. Any standard insecticide will help. At the start of the season, usually around April, the temptation is to start spraying, but resist the urge. It's better to wait until May, when there's a better chance of killing that generation. The beetles, if not resistant to the insecticide, should start dying right away. Follow this step each year, as the beetles could leave larvae.
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Tips & Warnings
Rotate insecticides. Using just one is futile as the potato beetle can easily build resistance to a particular kind.
