Up until the last three years , I rarely saw leaf - footed bug in my Pennsylvania garden . But for the past three get season , there ’s been increasing numbers of this plague in my vegetable patch . They damaged many of my tomatoes last yr , and my neighbor had the same issue in her garden .
What Are Leaf-Footed Bugs?
Leaf - footed bugs ( Leptoglossus spp . ) are typically a southerly pests , though they ’re sometimes found as far north as New England . As adults , these bugs are very conspicuous , progress to to between an column inch and an inch and a half in distance . They ’re shape like an elongated shield , and their rear legs have flattened , folio - like protrusions pass from them , giving rise to their common name of foliage - footed bugs . Leaf - footed bugs use a phonograph needle - like mouthpart called a rostrum to suck plant juice from fruits and leafage . They wait a lot like squash bugs on steroids .
Unfortunately , as nymphs , they ’re conspicuous , too , but for a dissimilar reason . Leaf - foot bug nymphs demo gregarious feeding behavior , meaning they all clump together to suck sap from boniface plants . Last summertime I was finding cluster of eight to fifteen nymph feed on a single tomato . Nymphs are small and sway backed . They do not yet have the leaf - like extensions on their back legs . Eggs are laid in row along stems or folio veins .
What Do Leaf-Footed Bugs Eat?
In my garden , I found these pests give on mytomatoes , but they do eat many other harvest . They ’re an important pest of citrus in the southward , and they also feed on pecan , peppers , Chuck Berry , mad apple , okra , watermelon , plums and sure grains , among many other plants . They also occasionally fertilise on ornamental .
As they breastfeed plant juice , they cause works tissues to become dimpled and cork - like . Severe feeding can cause yield drop . In my garden , they definitely rendered any tomato they assault inedible .
How to Get Rid of Leaf-Footed Bugs
Though my personal experience with this pest is set due to the fact that it ’s still a fairly minor pest here in Pennsylvania ( though that is likely changing ) , I can tell you that using the sticky side of a piece of canal tapeline is a nifty way to collect nymph and orchis from host plants . Because they congregate together to fertilise , collecting the houri is jolly easy , if you head out to the garden on a warm afternoon . I suppose a bug vac would be a good way to suck them up , too .
Because they feed with a piercing - take in mouthpart , much like squash hemipteron do , managing this plague with pesticide is reported to be pretty thought-provoking . Neem and insecticidal soaps are said to be affective against the nymph , as is horticultural oil . grownup are much more immune to pesticide use , however . It ’s also recommend that you hatch affected plants with floating quarrel cover version if you should come about to notice grownup leafage - footed bug in the garden preparing to place orchis .
look new garden pests is always challenge . Sadly leafage - footed bugs are n’t the only fledgling to my garden in late years . I ’ve seen other Southern pestilence species in my garden just within the past few years , includingharlequin bugs , lygus bugs , tomato pinwormsandtobacco / geranium budworms . There’sevidencethat the ranges of certain insect species areshifting north , and , woefully , we gardeners will be the first kinsfolk to take notice .
