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Probably no insect pest causes more frustration to the home gardener than the squash bug. Before you know what has happened, there are hordes of them, and they can be very difficult to control. All the cucurbits or vine crops are attacked, but they show a distinct preference for squashes and pumpkins.
When they attack leaves of plants, the leaves wilt rapidly as though the sap flow had been cut off and soon become blackened, crisp and dead. Small plants may be killed entirely, but usually only parts of large plants are affected.
The brownish black, flat-backed, adult bugs are about 5/8-inch long. The lighter colored young (nymphs) usually are 3/16- to 1/2-inch long. Both young and adults usually are hidden under dead leaves or clods around the base of the plant.
They overwinter as adults under all kinds of ground trash such as dead leaves, clods, stones, etc. They fly into gardens and locate food by the odor of the plants. The orange or dark-bronze eggs are laid in groups on the underside of leaves. Nymphs hatch from the eggs and go through several molts, before they become adults. Nymphs and adults all feed by sucking the sap of the plant. If these insects are crushed, an offensive odor is emitted. From egg to adult takes approximately two months. Egg laying continues over an extended period of time, but there is probably one generation per year.
The squash bug is one of the most difficult insects to control satisfactorily.
Gardeners should look for orange or dark-bronze, football-shaped eggs in bunches on the undersides of leaves and remove the eggs by hand.
Squash bugs will congregate at night under pieces of boards placed along the rows. The boards can be turned over each morning, and the bugs destroyed.
Esfenvalerate, bifenthrin, cyfluthrin, endosulfan, pyrellin, malathion or Sevin can be mixed with water and sprayed on the plants once a week or per label directions for control of the bugs. Always read and follow the label directions on the insecticide. If you are lucky, maybe control will be successful.
At the end of the summer, vines should be removed from the garden and disposed of or worked into a compost heap.
For more information on garden insects, call Keaton at the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension office at 425-2335.