Growing 90% for just CSA - here is my layout

[Joseph Lofthouse]

In my garden, the Colorado Potato Beetles prefer a wild solanum weed 500 to 1 over any of the domesticated solanums. I'm wondering about a trap crop? Not that I'd wish my wild solanums on anyone....

[littleminnie]

I do plan on trying deadly nightshade again. Last time I don't think it germinated. I will try it indoors this time- wait I have house cats. Maybe I will start in my little greenhouse.

Well I have turned my mind to thinking about growing corn again. I must be crazy! If I can just get it weeded once and mulched well maybe it would be ok. Oh the weeds are so bad.

I am thinking now of 2 beds of smaller tomatoes with 24 plants and 2 beds of larger plants with 16 in each bed. For a total of 80 plants. I hope that isn't too many. I don't can anymore (will grow 2 plants for drying) and I don't think any of my CSAs will and if I am not going to market that might be too many.

Also what do you plant your fennel near?

[oxbowfarm]

I studied agronomy at Colorado State. I remember that we had this Russian group of agronomists come for some meeting and they were asking what we did for Colorado Potato Beetle and the answer was basically "Nothing" and a shrug. CPB doesn't bother potatoes much in Colorado cause its eating buffalo bur. I think this is pretty much the case in most of the intermountain west like where Joseph is. I imagine that as you get farther away from that area the more adapted CPB will be to eating potatoes and less for buffalo bur to the point where it may ignore the buffalo bur completely, but it might be worth a try to plant some as a trap crop.

[gray]

I have a very interesting video I purchased from The university of vermont extention funded by sustainable ag research and education program SARE. It is called Farmers and their innovative cover cropping techniques. One of the farmers featured talks about planting potatoes between rows of tall winter rye. He claims this keeps cpb out of his potatoes. This might take up a lot of space but he uses the rye later for mulch. The farmer is Eero Ruuttila of Nesenkeag Farm Litchfield NH.

[littleminnie]

If only. All around the patch of field I rent is perennial winter rye with a little hairy vetch and milkweed- that is a lot of winter rye.
However when you don't live in a potato town (our town fair is Spud Fest) you don't have the CPB problems I do here. PLus I think 2011 was extraordinarily bad. I am sure the farmers aren't switching their pesticides as they should.

Anyway, still thinking about corn, crazy me!

[12540dumont]

Joseph, do you think they'd eat those huckleberries?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I believe that the wild nightshade that the Colorado Potato Beetles around here enjoy so much is Solanum physalifolium. The USDA plants profile database shows it as widely distributed. I didn't notice any Colorado Potato Beetles on the huckleberries.

[mnjrutherford]

CPB loves horse nettle (Solanum carolinense L. ) around here. But I sure DON'T want to encourage THAT to grow!
None of our birds will eat them, not even the guineas. I keep ours in check by hand squishing eggs, larve, and adults. It's nasty but it works. However, your situation is MUCH worse than mine. I sure wish I had some decent ideas and suggestions for you. =o(

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I squish every CPB that I see on a crop. I leave them alone if they are on a wild nightshade. I don't weed away all of the wild nightshades.

I figure that I am making a contract with the CPB: They are welcome to the wild nightshades in my garden in exchange for them avoiding Potatoes, Eggplant, and Tomatoes, and passing those avoidance tendencies on to their children. I do my part to make it easy for them to keep the contract. Any cultivated solanum that is especially attractive to CPB is not invited back into my garden next year. As an example, I grew a Homegrown Goodness landrace of tomatoes this year. One plant was hugely attractive to the CPB. It was the only tomato in the garden that was attractive to them, and it received infestation after infestation. I chopped it off.

Someone asked my daddy one time why he didn't have weeds in his garden. His reply was "I train the bugs to eat the weeds." While it might sound like a joke, I am doing the same thing: If predation is higher for CPB on potatoes than it is on wild solanums, the preferences of the population are likely to change to avoid predation.

I'm glad I don't have potato fields close by.

[littleminnie]

The beetles killed my Orange Russian 117 plant- that was their favorite. I have seen them kill grown eggplants in a week when the potato fields are poisoned. I hate to say this but I wish the farmers would spray some pesticide with that Roundup to knock them out before they march to my garden.

[davida]

Why are the potato fields poisoned?

[oxbowfarm]

Commercial potato tops are routinely sprayed with herbicide to kill them once the crop has reached the desired size/yield. That triggers the potatoes to harden up and go dormant, switch from a "new potato" to something they can dig mechanically and toss around without the skins peeling off.

[ottawagardener]

My CPB prefer perennial ground cherry including the ornamental Chinese lantern variety. It's up earlier than the crop solanums and apparently tastier? In my old garden, they didn't get on my potatoes/tomatoes/eggplants/ground cherries at all in favour of the ground cherries which were pretty robust. In my new garden they are (so far) only a minor nuisance.

[davida]

Thanks for the CPB warning for ground cherries. I am wanting to do a small trial on ground cherries in 2012 and the warning will be helpful.

[littleminnie]

Interesting trap crop idea. Is it ground cherries or more like tomatillos? Aren't they similar? It has been years since I grew them.