South Texas, Assasin Bugs & Tomatoes

[RCD2951]

Hi,

I live in San Antonio, TX, and need some advice on dealing with "Blood Suckers/AssasinBugs". Every time I plant tomatoes, these agressive stinky (and potentially biting) insects tend to congregate on my tomatoe plants, usually stinging & ruining the fruit. What can i do to eliminate these pesty insects. i understand they are considered beneficial to some, but I dislike them intensely.

Regards

John Pearson [e-mail]

[B.Server]

John,

You might want to check your nomenclature. Assassin bugs are predators and do not eat or otherwise tomatoes other than to remove bothersome insects. Since you mention that they "stink", my guess is that you have one of the several kinds of "stinkbugs" that do indeed damage tomatoes, The site:

will help you to identify the insect and gives a number of links/pointers for control measures ranging from organic through IPM to nuclear war.

Personally, I have found that controlling the eggs helps the most. They seem to die with a treatment or two of Neem oil. That is a little tricky later in the year as the Neem oil can cause leaf burn.

Hope that this helps some.

cheers.