flea beetle

[bluebellParticipant]

Hi do you have any idea when flea beetle stop being an issue? i uncovered my Mizuma last weekend thinking it was safe and now they are almost non existent from a flea beetle attack.

[charlesModerator]

 Are you sure Bluebell that the holes are caused by flea beetle i.e. many small holes? Are you seeing the little black beetles hopping around?

If so, they are out of season! Scant consolation and I would leave the cover off because they dislike rain. I have seen very few here since about 20th August when young brassica salad leaves suddenly grew clean and healthy.

Possibly you have lots of small slugs? Or in the warm south east (are you Herts), perhaps flea beetles live longer?

[bluebellParticipant]

I have never seen slugs eat such a delecate pattern and the things effected are brassica family seedlings (they have left the purple sprouting etc alone). I think there are one or two black dots but it was difficult to tell without my reading glasses!

However there were large colonies of flea beetle living in a shed that was dismantled in July and I have had more problems with them than anything other than slugs – hence the use of a cover. We have been warm and dry compared to much of the UK, here in south beds and the damage is no where near as bad as we had earlier in the year.

I do have plenty of small slugs but they appear to be more interested in the cover provided by mature lettuce at the moment and are not doing as much damage as the huge ones I had a couple of months ago.

[BarbaraMember]

I had a similar problem with wild rocket under enviromesh at the end of August. I had put this on specifically to exclude flea beatle from the pristine plants! Unfortunately it was badly affected by flea beetle (the most likely candidate given the damage), whereas wild rocket in the neighbouring bed was unaffected. I suspect that the flea beetle was already on the soil and was trapped under the mesh. But the neighbouring bed got more water which the flea beetle didn’t like. I removed the mesh and the rocket is now looking good.

However I am starting to suspect another pest as the cause of “flea beetle-like” damage on brassicas in September. Perhaps Charles or someone else may be able to shed some light on it. They are tiny grey/brown weevils, the same size as flea beetles, which nestle at the base of brassica salads, such as wild rocket and mizuna. I deliberately waited til September to plant out the mizuna to avoid flea beetle. Again the plants were pristine on planting out, but soon got peppered with tiny holes (along with some slug damage). I’ve checked on the internet and they look like brassica stem weevils or seed weevils. They’ve been troublesome in the past and first appeared when three neighbouring fields were all planted with oil seed rape. According to what i’ve seen on the internet they’re not supposed to be a problem on the leaves. Has anyone else had a problem with them?

[bluebellParticipant]

We have a lot of rape around here and having looked at a site on rape pests it would appear that even flea beetles carry on being an issue for much longer than I had thought. Oh well you live and learn.

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