Colorado potato beetle

Vegetable gardener watch your potatoes

Colorado potato beetles and the larvae eat the leaves of potato plants. And they do that quickly. Catch the beetles and destroy them. The beetle is + 10 mm in size and is very harmful. Check the potato plantings regularly for the eggs on the underside of the leaf, destroy them. If you see beetles in the potato plants, hold a bucket under the plants and shake the plants: the beetles are startled and drop into the bucket.

recognize Colorado potato beetle
Colorado potato beetle, photo: US – Agricultural Research Service

The Colorado potato beetle has natural enemies only in its native range; there are no predators in the newly colonized areas that can withstand the poison of the beetle and its larvae. Natural enemies include birds, spiders, phalangids and over thirty different insects. Examples of insects that attack the beetle or its larvae are  ground beetles, the coccinellid beetles, shield bugs, lacewings, damsel bugs and wasps.

author avatar
Bram Wolthoorn