Stink bugs ruining tomatoes!?!?!

[SunshineAndSoil]

Hey everyone,

I have had a lot of frustration with my tomatoes this year, and now the stink bugs have found them. I am not quite sure how to deal with this. Is there some insecticide or natural repellent that would be safe to spray directly on the plants and tomatoes or something? I picked off a few manually, and dropped them in soapy water. It's just very irritating. HELP!

PS: I put this in "general gardening" because I wasn't entirely sure whether it should be in "vegetables" or "fruits" lol.

 

[Tetters]

Oh dear @SunshineAndSoil I take it you don`t find these little brown shield bugs ''cute'' then

I believe they were introduced some years ago to USA from China ...............
I think probably the only thing to try would be nematodes, although I`m not sure just what you would ask for there. I think there is a parasitic wasp which attacks them. Maybe in the future you could try growing inside a netted tunnel (hoop house) or similar ????
I sympathise and wish you good luck with the problem.

Here in Kent UK we have been ''blessed'' in recent years with the harlequin ladybird. That stinks too !! We have to get loads of cleaner bags and suck the perishing things up the vacuum pipe. Yuk.

 

[Yinon]

@SunshineAndSoil , I think spraying with water every day (or at least regularly), could make them leave.

Oh and I think I heard somewhere that there is this home-made thingy when you mix up water, some kind of oil (Vegetable oil, lavender oil, olive oil, etc) with some sort of garden sprayer to repel the insects. Maybe this can help.

Additionally, my friend once showed me some methods he read about, one of them is a clay called Kaolin, that you can use to make a barrier between the bugs and the plant. (Not sure if it's the best thing to use on tomatoes).

I personally haven't seen a lot of cases of stink bugs here in Israel, but maybe it's just me...

Good luck, and let us know if anything helped.

 

[SunshineAndSoil]

Thanks a lot, both of you! I'll see what I can do.

 

[roadrunner]

I just let them be and I've only lost about 10% of my tomatoes to them. They do love them tomatoes and I'm always seeing them hang out on them and even mating and I just found some stinkbug eggs the other day on a top leaf of my tomato plant and I left them alone.

I'm not sure if 10% loss is average, low or high, but I find it totally acceptable, I just throw those tomatoes out and let them reseed.

 

[Chuck]

Hey everyone,

I have had a lot of frustration with my tomatoes this year, and now the stink bugs have found them. I am not quite sure how to deal with this. Is there some insecticide or natural repellent that would be safe to spray directly on the plants and tomatoes or something? I picked off a few manually, and dropped them in soapy water. It's just very irritating. HELP!

PS: I put this in "general gardening" because I wasn't entirely sure whether it should be in "vegetables" or "fruits" lol.

Once stink bugs are adults there isn't much you can do about them except to spray directly onto them. Stink bugs on tomatoes do the most damage to the fruits themselves. They stick their proboscis into the tomato and suck out juices while leaving behind a chemical which causes a rotten spot to form. The only way to control them completely is to stop their eggs from hatching. The vast majority of stink bug eggs will be on the bottom of the leaves of squash. One must really look for the eggs. They are usually a light brownish yellow egg laid in mass in a defined pattern. There could be as many as 100 eggs. When you find the eggs either smash them or spray them with Neem Oil. After the eggs hatch, there will be little dark-bodied insects with reddish legs. Dozens of them will congregate together at the base of the squash plant. At this time spray them with spinosad. It kills them very effectively. Once these young reach adulthood and fly away it is very difficult to control them. There are many different varieties of stink bug but the leaf-footed stink bug is the most harmful. There are a lot of different varieties of the leaf-footed stink bug also. Kaolin clay is somewhat effective. It forms a sort of shield on the surface of the foliage and fruit which the stink bugs and grasshoppers find most annoying when trying to penetrate or eat. It is sold at hobby shops and is also sold under the name of Surround WP. But in reality there really isn't much you can do once adulthood is reached.

 

[River]

I learned a long time ago that the only way to control stink bugs is not with chemicals, but literally find them when they are young and smush them. You can take a bucket and just tap on the branches that you find them on & they literally fall off. Once they get bigger they develop wings and it is much harder to get rid of. They are a pain. Like Chuck said they attack the fruit. Whereas, worms eat the leaves & the plants can rebound.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Yeah I am a hater too.

Here is my latest setup, wide open for any bug. Lately its been a certain small caterpillar. 7 gallon grow bags after we figured out the black kow composted manure had aminoclopyrid residue.

 

[SunshineAndSoil]

So far, for me, tomatoes have been by FAR the hardest plant I've ever grown.

 

[Pepperhead]

Bug-a-Salt is what i've used in the past for those stupid bugs. They've ruined too many peppers of mine, so they get the gun now. It will likely take epsom salt instead of table salt if that's a concern. My brother uses his to kill porch flies all the time. Don't hit stems or leaves directly, but find a clear line-of-sight first (lost a hanabero like that).

 

[SunshineAndSoil]

THAT looks like fun. . Unfortunately, now deer have eaten all of the fruits. *uncomprendible frustrated growling noises*