What could be eating holes in bean leaves?

[shotgun]

something is eating holes in the leaves . lots of holes HELP

[pepper4]

I can't help you but I am having the same problem. I haven't been able to find what's doing it so I am interested in any responses or help you get.

[freedhardwoods]

Get some Sevin powder or spray and put it on your beans. It is available at many places. That has always stopped anything eating on my vegetables. You can put it on lots of different plants to control bugs.

[rainbowgardener]

Please don't use the Sevin! There've been lots of allegations made against it as a carcinogen, teratogen (causing birth defects), etc. in humans and other mammals. That is controversial and I think not proven, but this part is real:

We do know that carbaryl (the poison in Sevin) is quite toxic to honey bees, certain beneficial insects such as lady beetles, and parasitic wasps and bees, certain species of aquatic insects, and some forms of shellfish such as shrimp and crabs. Care must be taken when using carbaryl in areas where these organisms exist. https://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/facts-slides-self/facts/gen-pubre-sevin.html

Our honey bees are having a hard enough time. Poisons like that are very disruptive to the natural ecosystems. Try blending up onions, garlic, black pepper, cayenne pepper, tomato leaves if you have them, any aromatic herbs you have (mint, cinnamon, tarragon, basil, etc), leaves of mums or tansy if you have them, in water, with some salad oil to help it stick to the plant and just a few drops of non-detergent soap. Let it sit for awhile, then strain and spray on the plant. Totally harmless and edible (though not necessarily good tasting) for humans, but does a good job of repelling a whole lot of pests.

[2cents]

If it is holes all the way through the leaves, the this is; Typically this is the "bean leaf beetle".
They are one reason I plant beans twice as heavy as the directions.
They will kill a couple new plants each year. I have never treated for them. I just tolerate the little thieves. Of course some years they get so bad, they take a few bites out of a couple beans, which I discard.

If it is really annoying, try Rainbow's ideas. RB has some good ideas.
My understanding is there is no home remedy. And the underside of the leaf is what really needs treating, which is difficult.

That being said, I have come home from work and on the active leaves, fold them in half and kill anything in the leaf. This will keep the population down and you can be happy most of your plants will survive.

[freedhardwoods]

I have nothing against organic gardening. I'm new here and I thought those that wanted organic solutions would ask questions in that forum. I plant a large garden, and when bean beetles attack around here, they will kill the plant if you don't kill them first. Most everyone around here uses sevin because it works. Good luck if you go the organic route.

[rainbowgardener]

Everyone has to make their own choices. I'm just trying to make sure they have adequate information basis on which to do that. (and I will work on toning down the rhetoric a little re "please don't do that" and stick to the proven facts) The trouble with disruptive interventions is that you need more and more of them. When you've wiped out the predators that keep the aphids, etc in control, then you will see a resurgence of them. When you've wiped out the pollinators then you will be stuck hand pollinating. Also you aren't only choosing for yourself, those poisons tend to be long lasting in the environment, concentrate up the food chain, and seep into the soil and water systems.

And the people who post their questions in the organic gardening forum probably already have this information, as probably do you as an experienced gardener. The ones I am concerned about are all the many "newbies" who come here knowing little or nothing about gardening and wouldn't put their questions under organic gardening. If some one sounding like they know what they are talking about says dust with sevin, they are likely to say OK, without thinking twice about it and without understanding the choice they are making. I think they should think twice and make aware choices.

For backyard gardeners, there's tons of non-disruptive options to work with natural systems, not against them. As you scale up, some of those options go away--obviously farmers with acres to tend aren't going to be hand picking beetles off their crop. But others get easier, BT sprays, parasitic wasps, crop rotations, changing planting schedules to avoid when certain insects hatch out, etc are all probably easier on farm scale. I can't really "rotate" my "crops" on my quarter acre, because there's already only a few spots sunny enough to plant any herbs or veggies...

[hendi_alex]

I use interplanting and widely space several smaller bean plantings rather than planting one large block. That seems to help. This year in one area of the garden, the bean beetles are pretty active. In two other areas, one about 50 feet away and the second about 100 feet away, there is little or no sign of the bettles. Secondly, as soon as I see signs of the beetles, I begin to hand pick. You can't eliminate the beetles by hand picking, but by spending as little as ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes in the evening, I can reduce the number of flea beetles and bean beetle sufficiently that they don't overly damage the plants. This method doesn't affect beneficials, doesn't contaminate my garden, and for me generally works pretty well. I will use chemicals in some cases, as an absolutely last resort, but that is usually a very limited application and some years none are used at all. Probably 90% of what we grow never gets any direct application of pesticide at all. I refuse to put any kind of poison on green bean plants, lettuce or any leafy vegetables, nor directly on any fruit that has already begun to form.

[hendi_alex]

Forgot to mention in the previous post, that one benefit of succession planting is that one or more of the plantings is likely to miss a period of high pest activity.

In the previous post I mentioned spacing small plantings some distance aways from one another. Here are photos of my three bean planting areas. One is from my older established planting area, the second is from my new raised bed area about 50 feet away. The third photo is from an in ground planting area, very sandy, and just used for the second year this year.

I got behind the curve on picking beetles from the main bed area, but am making headway, picking beetles for a few minutes twice per day.

[img]https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3394/3570291158_41cdbd22f9.jpg[/img]

Fifty feet away in the raised beds, heavily interplanted with cucumbers and raspberries, there is no evidence of bean beetle activity.

[img]https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3355/3569478819_be1f960fe6.jpg[/img]

Fifty feet further from the new raised beds in the in ground plot, the beetles seem to have just found these beans this week. Smashed just a few beetles this a.m. from that spot. You will see very little damage to the leaves.

[img]https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3104/3570291694_0b1b3e9ff3.jpg[/img]

So for gardeners who can separate plots by distance and those who use heavy interplanting, bean beetles and other pests can be managed pretty effectively without any reliance or with minimal reliance on pesticides. Throw succession planting into the mix and you will likely have some patches of beans that have only the most negligible amount of munching from pests.

[Gary350]

I was reading about organic bug sprays. Bring some cayenne red pepper to a boil in some water when it cools add a squirt of dish soap to the water then spray it on the plants.

[applestar]

I feel compelled to comment with regard to Sevin -- please refer to this thread:
https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8520

[freedhardwoods]

Below is just one of several quotes from the webpage that rainbowgardener refered to above that I thought was interesting.

"Human volunteers have orally ingested carbaryl at 2 mg/kg of body weight with no observed effects."

I have been called crazy on several occasions, and I have no qualms about using sevin on my garden, but I wouldn't try that.

[rainbowgardener]

Even if it is safe for humans, which remains a bit controversial and certainly varies from one person to the next, my point was that it is not safe for the environment. Toxic to honeybees, ladybird beetles and other critters that you do want to have around... Go back and read Silent Spring, the classic that helped start the popular environmental movement. DDT wasn't really poisonous to humans either, people sprayed it in their houses to control mosquitos. That's not why it's banned now; it's because it was so toxic in the environment.

[freedhardwoods]

I did understand what your point was, I just thought some of the other things they said in the article was interesting also.

[CariL]

Just the facts on Sevin, https://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/carbgen.pdf; having said that, I avoid chemicals as much as I can.

Can anyone tell me what this invisible bug is that eats away the leaves on eggplants, stringbeans and some of my flowers....