Tanya Huff wrote:
Tanya
Apparently one of the up-to-date strategies for controlling pests is to
simply provide alternative host plants which the pest likes better than
your crop. You have given an interesting example yourself, and another I
saw mentioned was pigweed around a crop of sweet peppers which also
lured away the pest ..leafminers, I think.
Anyway, the finding in many cases is that the pests like certain weeds a
lot more than your crops, but if you insist on destroying the weeds thay
will be driven to eat the crop instead... So much for clean weeding!!!
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan
Wainuiomata (near Wellington, capital city of New Zealand)
For what it's worth I discovered that tomatillos serve as a good trap for
cucumber beetles. See I tried to compost some tomatillos last year - they
obvious like the low heat my pile reached. I must have got 100% germination
this year, in my squash, potatoes, tomatoes, sunflowers, peppers, etc.
I think the only thing I didn't add the compost to was peas.
Though it didn't eliminate them on the squash and cucumbers, there were
sizable numbers on the tomatillos that sprouted up everywhere and fewer then
normal on the normal hosts.
Gil
Gil White wrote:
Gil
Definitely a case of serendipity I should say.
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan
Wainuiomata (near Wellington, capital city of New Zealand)
