07/20/06 Catching the little stinkers

The little stinkers. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. With all the issues in the world to worry about, now here is one more little stinking problem. Stink bugs. Every summer, these slow-moving, shield-shaped, well-camouflaged insects descend on Northwest gardens, sampling tomatoes, beans, raspberries, strawberries and other large-seeded produce. University of Idaho Extension integrated pest management specialist, Ed Bechinski says its stink bug time. BECHINSKI: They're true to their name. They're bugs which to an entomologist means they're a particular subcategory of insects and they're stinky. They can produce offensive odors that prevent this bug from being eaten by other things that would just otherwise like to eat it. Shield shaped bugs. Green. Brown. About as big as your thumbnail. I'd say widely encountered in lots of different habitats. Stink bugs have pores under the equivalent of their armpits that exude these smells. But the smell isn't the main reason we don't like them. BECHINSKI: Stink bugs are my own backyard enemy. I find them every single year in tomatoes. They'll feed on the green developing fruit. They simply take this thin proboscis if you really want to call it that or their beak and insert it into the fruit and sucks the sap from that fruit. The saliva that they inject when they feed, the saliva has a toxic reaction and causes sort of a corky wound. And not only tomatoes but tree fruits, small fruits, large seeded crops like lima beans and that type of thing, they'll feed widely on those. Bechinski says the damage caused by stink bugs is really more annoying than damaging. BECHINSKI: Normally we don't have so many stink bugs that they would actually eliminate a crop. On the other hand I don't have any tomatoes in my own yard that are free entirely of these blemishes they leave behind. But me, I just tolerate them. I think most people probably think that their tomatoes or fruits are supposed to look like that. They don't even recognize that its insect damage they're consuming. So if you aren't content to share your crops with stick bugs, what are your alternatives? BECHINSKI: I always like to think first of alternatives to insecticides and so one thing that can be done is just literally shake them from the plant. Just vigorously grab the foliage and shake these insects; they'll feign death, they'll typically drop to the ground and you might be able to capture them in a bucket of soapy water and drown them. For a commercial setting or small market grower some sort of broad spectrum insecticide might be required to protect the fruit crop or bean crop. Did we mention that some cultures prefer to eat them? BECHINSKI: I would challenge anybody who would like to eat a stinkbug to do it and then let me know because I'd like to know what it tastes like. Enough said. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.