Squash Bugs Still Making Growers Crazy After All These Years

by Entomology Today

If there’s one word that describes the squash bug (Anasa tristis), it is frustrating, according to Hélène Doughty, the lead author of a new descriptive article that appears in the Journal of Integrated Pest Management. A noted problem insect in the United States for more than a century, the squash bug continues to do considerable damage to crops, particularly in light of the trend away from conventional insecticides to newer strategies, including organic approaches.

“We’re really trying to find some answers, especially for organic growers, but it’s just a very difficult pest to control,” said Doughty, a research specialist senior at Virginia Tech’s Hampton Roads Agricultural Research and Extension Center. “It’s definitely been a frustrating pest and a frustrating area of study......”

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My Take - I don't undrestand this - according to organic farmers they don't need pesticides...although they use a ton of them, so why are they working to help organic growers?  If they don't need modern help, they shouldn't be getting it.  And so they must be trying to impose it on organic farmers.  Right?  It would appear they're working to push mankind back into the Dark Ages of agriculture. Just a thought! Whooooops....Oh, wait, I must have missed this part of the article:

Unfortunately, no pest-management program has yet come close to matching the effectiveness of the broad-spectrum insecticides against squash bugs.

Oh....here's another part I missed: 

Despite the decades of growers’ experience and researchers’ experiments with this pest, options remain limited, Doughty admits. “Under very high pressure, it will be difficult to use any other strategies aside from crop rotation or using conventional broad-spectrum insecticides,” she said. “As Metcalf et al. wrote in 1962, ‘There is no more vexatious pest of the garden than the squash bug.’”

Amazing!  Does that mean "organic" farmers are using synthetic broad spectrum pesticides?  Nah....they're just using broad spectrum pesticides that are more toxic in more ways that the synthetics.  Feel all better now?