“ Who ’s been eat on my asparagus?”The answer is probablyCrioceris asparagi , better known as the coarse asparagus mallet , the colorful , 1/4 - inch - long insect in the photo above .
The little , blue - black beetles with emollient - colored spots show up in your garden early in the outpouring , just as you ’re looking forward to your first asparagus harvest . They give on the lance , have them to explicate lopsidedly . Besides prey legal injury , the beetles lay eggs on the gig . You may notice the rows of little dark egg on the spear or on the foliage , like the 1 at correct . The testis wo n’t actually spite the industrial plant , but they ’re not very appetizing . In a small edible asparagus bed , you could wipe off the eggs from individual spears , cutting down on the number of beetles who make it to the adult degree . The nut hatch in about a week .
Common Asparagus officinales beetle eggs
When the egg hatch , the larvae emerge . The larva , shown here , eat up the ferny asparagus leaf , and if there are enough of them , can defoliate the asparagus , subvert the plants and making them more susceptible to disease . The larvae provender for about two week , and then they fall to the earth and pupate in the dirt . You ’re not probable to point out the pupae in your garden .
After pupating for about a week , the adult mallet emerge , and starts a whole raw propagation of dirt ball . The adults fertilize on the asparagus foliage , too , and continue active all during the growing season . Usually there are two contemporaries of asparagus beetles a year , although this can change in different climates .
rough-cut asparagus beetle larvae
Controlling asparagus beetles
The good news is that most gardener will never have enough common asparagus beetles in their edible asparagus bottom to do serious wrong . A few beetles wo n’t really hurt anything . However , it ’s a good musical theme to get free of them when you do see them , before they have a population detonation !
The easiest way to get rid of a few beetle is to clean the adults and larvae off the plants and set down them in a pail of buttery water system , where they ’ll drown . Adult beetle overwinter in leaf and plant litter , so another crucial step is to clean the bottom up in the fall , cauterise or composting the idle leaf .
You may also mark some tiny , metal - unripened white Anglo-Saxon Protestant ( less than 1/8 inch ong ) around your asparagus plot of ground . You ’re probably seeingTetrastichus asparagi , a instinctive dirt ball enemy of the edible asparagus mallet . Leave these little guys alone , because they ’re on your side .
If all else fail , products containing the botanic insecticide pyrethrin , or the chemical insecticide carbaryl ( Sevin ) are effective against asparagus mallet . Some formulations are good to use up until the day before harvesting , but you ’ll need to tick the label to ensure . Once you ’ve finished harvesting for the class , it ’s o.k. to apply pesticides to the foliage , but be careful around your other veg plants .
When should you care about asparagus beetles ? A formula of thumb is that if you spot an adult beetle on 1 in 10 works or larvae on 50 to 75 percent of the plants , you should use some kind of control . However , in a low asparagus patch , those number might still mean only a few beetles , which are easy handpicked from the plants .
Spotted asparagus beetle
Another visitor to your Asparagus officinales might be the spotted asparagus beetle ( Crioceris duodecimpunctata ) , prove at remaining , and about 1/4 - inch long in real life . Spotted edible asparagus beetles do rest eggs on asparagus , and the adults and larvae do flow on edible asparagus ( often on the berries ) , but they do less terms than the uncouth asparagus beetle , although the life cycles are the same . They show up in your garden a small later in the spring , so the adults do n’t have much opportunity to feed on the spears , and they only lay eggs on the leafage . The larvae feed mostly on the berries instead of the leafage , and that does n’t affect the industrial plant ’s wellness .
