How to Control Asparagus Beetle with 6 Easy Steps
How to control asparagus beetles threatening your asparagus plant and get rid of them in a safe way? If you decide to grow an asparagus plant, be aware of asparagus beetles that might kill your plants. To save your plants and let the asparagus grow optimally, you should know the steps of controlling asparagus beetles below.
How to Control Asparagus Beetle with 6 Easy Steps
Know the Types of Asparagus Beetle Before knowing about how to control the asparagus pests, you should know that there are 2 different asparagus beetle types that you can find. One is a common asparagus beetle then the other type is spotted asparagus beetle with both having different colors. If you pay attention to them, common type asparagus beetles have white dots on their black wings. Meanwhile for the spotted asparagus beetle, they have black dots on their orange wings. However, you can use the same method to control or get rid of both types of asparagus beetle. Although there are two different types of asparagus beetle, they potentially damage and kill your asparagus plants.
Do Monitoring Before controlling or getting rid of asparagus beetles, you should do monitoring first. Monitoring is important because you need to know the signs of any beetles on your asparagus. When it’s already early May, you have to be more aware of asparagus pests by monitoring throughout its growing season.
Do Cultural Control How to control asparagus beetles naturally can be started by doing cultural controls. It means you need to know that asparagus patches are the place for these pests to spend the winter. When the fall season comes, you can remove the ferns when the colors already turn brownish. However, sometimes the color of the plants doesn't turn to brown yet even when the snow already falls. In this case, the fall season is the right time to remove dead ferns even if they aren’t brown yet. When removing dead ferns, choose the ones from the growing area not to let the other pests hang around it.
Do Physical Control Physical control means that you should handpick the asparagus plants; it’s more recommended if you have small gardens. Prepare a pail and fill it with soapy water, start handpicking the adult asparagus beetle and larvae from your plants. If you find the spears have dark brown eggs, don’t hesitate to remove them and monitor your plants after this.
Do Biological Control Biological control means you let the tiny metallic green wasp keep your garden from asparagus beetle attack. If you find these wasps, don’t use pesticides to kill them, but leave them to parasitize the beetle eggs. The wasps are actually beneficial insects because they can kill up to 70% of beetle eggs. How to control asparagus beetles organically is also by having the beneficial insects in your garden, especially in asparagus plants. The number of beetles can be reduced so the asparagus pests won’t feed on the spears and tips later. That’s why it’s better to kill the eggs to prevent them from growing into more numbers.
Use Pesticides Pesticides should be the last option in controlling and getting rid of asparagus beetles. Use pesticides when 20% or more of spears turns dark brown showing the presence of asparagus beetle eggs there. You can also prefer pesticides when 10% or more of the plants are attacked by adult asparagus beetles. However, choose the pesticides with a certain label; make sure the pesticides are designed for vegetables and asparagus. Don’t spray pesticides when asparagus and other plants around it during the flowering time. Make sure you also use pesticides when common asparagus beetle larvae attack 50-75% of your plants.
How to control asparagus beetles can be started by doing monitoring and some controls. If you decide to use pesticides, follow the label instructions so you won’t make mistakes. Make sure asparagus is on the list of the pesticide’s label before you use it on them.