The Potato Beetle

 

The potato beetle is a small bug that lives off of the leaves of potato, tomato, eggplants and peppers. The adults will emerge in the spring after spending the winter in soil of fields and start eating as well as laying eggs. The females will start to lay eggs after a few days in the field. She will lay egg clusters between fifteen and twenty-five eggs, with approximately two-hundred-fifty eggs per female. Larva start out small but grow quickly molding during four different stages. The last of these stages is the largest and this is when the potato beetle eats the most foliage, though it spends its entire life eating leafs. After this fourth stage they will crawl back into the soil and emerge as adults. This process may happen anywhere from one to three times a season. (Grubinger, 2004) One of the best defensives against the potato beetle is Bacillus Thuringiensis var. San Diego. This bio pesticide will kill both the adult and larva of potato beetles after they ingest it.