Caterpillars on Hops Plants

[pie man]

If you are lucky to have them paper wasps can be a sort of blessing in disguise, they clean out all caterpillars from your garden. They are peaceful if left alone but you need to know where the nest is.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Just to back up the above mentioned use of DiPel: it is not a chemical, it's a form of biological control. The product is a preparation of bacterial spores* that infect the caterpillars. Since the infection is quite specific to Lepidoptera larvae, it won't harm other animals (including humans).

As far as I am aware it is registered for use against the target pests (the above mentioned caterpillars) in every state and has no withholding period.


* The bug is a specific strain of Bacillus thuringiensis.

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Dipel can be used by backyard hop gardeners under the domestic exemption, but I don't think it's registered commercially for hops in NSW.

Check out the APVMA website to be sure. Sometimes if an industry is relatively small, it's simply not worth the cost to the pesticide company to register for that purpose in that state.

Edit: I would also make a short note that not all things biological are necessarily best. Cane Toads, for example were are a biological control.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Why not just use pyrethrum spray?
I normally just inspect and squash the offenders, but if I was to spray, I'd use pyrethrum. Is the some reason not to?

Pyrethrum spray does not single out just the pest insects, it kills bees and other beneficial insects as does Yates Success and Derris dust . Though a natural insecticide they are made from plants, which the plants in turn made to reduce insect attack.
Caterpillars finger and thumb or Dipel

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Dipel takes 3-4 days to kill the caterpillar (it's not a quick death). . . Quicker actives are out there but they kill other things too.

Finger and thumb is good, but you've got to catch them in the act ..

Nothing is perfect.

 

[No.42-jsb]

So a combination of squashing the ones I found early in the morning and spraying with Dipel worked. Got rid of the suckers for now!

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Dipel works for weeks. It is the Organic option. Organic Certified. Gotta respect that. Good to have a rod sprayer and spray the underneath of leaves. That's were the buggers spend most their time and it lasts as a preventive inoculation so to speak. Even if it rains etc. Once a month foliage spray and you will never have caterpillars while effectively culling the population of moths and butterflies that lay the eggs.