slater bugs
John McKinney
Hi. I have a problem with slater bugs eating my lettuces, cabbages and
pak choi. Any organic methods eg traps, repellants. I have a dog that
will eat anything, so I'm not keen to put out pellets.
Thanks
--
John McKinney http://www.wantree.com.au/~oliverm/
mailto:oli...@wantree.com.au or mailto:pha...@mindless.com
There's a fine line between courage and foolishness.
Too bad its not a fence.
Basil Chupin
In article <w42069g...@bookworm.sw.oz.au>
Peter Chubb <pet...@sw.oz.au> writes:
> I didn't think that slaters (woodlice) eat anything still living
> --
> just dead leafmould and the fungus that grows on it ... Are you
> sure
> it's them that are eating your lettuces?
>
> We have more problems with snails and birds (birds seem to like
> the
> very young leaves)
SLATER-
* A small shield-like creature with many legs which, when touched,
curls up to form a ball;
* Found in shady, moist places. Often under ground litter and stones;
* Attacks young seedlings and invades older plants where there is a
wound or some rot already developed;
* Chews young tender foliage but prefers plants already damaged by
a prior pest.
CONTROL-
Remove garden rubbish which may harbour slaters. Boiling water can be used to
kill slaters in infested areas. Some types of snail bait give control and
dusting with diatomaceous earth will help.
----------------------------------------------------------
Basil Chupin Internet: blch...@pcug.org.au
Fidonet: 3.620.269.0 +61-6-285-2353
Canberra, A.C.T., Australia
----------------------------------------------------------
Stylesie
>Hi. I have a problem with slater bugs eating my lettuces, cabbages and
>pak choi. Any organic methods eg traps, repellants. I have a dog that
>will eat anything, so I'm not keen to put out pellets.
>Thanks
I've got millions of Slater bugs in my Compost bin, they don't attack my
plants and I've never tried to get rid of them.
Mind you they ar ugly critters.
Maybe a compost trap near to your plants would draw them away, they prefer
the compost environment. Dunno really :-)
Colin
--
Colin
John Savage
John McKinney <oli...@wantree.com.au> writes:
>Hi. I have a problem with slater bugs eating my lettuces, cabbages and
>pak choi. Any organic methods eg traps, repellants. I have a dog that
>will eat anything, so I'm not keen to put out pellets.
It's more likely to be snails (night raiders) and/or sparrows (daytime).
Slaters eat only decomposing plant matter. When my father grew lettuce
he always strung a line of thin black cotton just above the plants (as
three separate strands) to keep the sparrows off them. Apparently black
cotton is nearly invisible, and when the birds brush against it they
get frightened off.
--
John Savage koala ~ sydney.dialix.com.au <-- use this address
John McKinney
Peter Chubb wrote:
> I didn't think that slaters (woodlice) eat anything still living --
> just dead leafmould and the fungus that grows on it ... Are you sure
> it's them that are eating your lettuces?
>
> We have more problems with snails and birds (birds seem to like the
> very young leaves)
>
> Peter C
Hi, I've gone out at night with a torch, but have only found one or
two snails in thne whole garden, but wew have a major slater infestation
- I don't know if they are eating my lettuces, but I can't find anything
else there. I have seen one or two bugs, that look like antlions (which
are bugs that dig reverse volcanoes in sand and ants fall in the hole
and get eaten) on the leaves, but I don't think these eat leaves. I have
also put out some beer and yeast traps in jars, but no snails or slugs
yet.
I'm pretty new to this gardening scene, and was thrilled when all the
seedlings turned into lettuces etc, and then felt like i had been shot
in the heart when some malicious bugs were eating my hard work :).
Thanks in advance for any help.
John.
ps, can any posts please be cc'd to me, as I am going away and will be
unable to read news for 4 or 5 weeks.
THANKS
-
Basil Chupin
In article <5nua8r$s...@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>
nm...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren) writes:
> In article <B7B122...@pcug.org.au>,
> Basil Chupin <blch...@pcug.org.au> wrote:
>In article <w42069g...@bookworm.sw.oz.au>
>Peter Chubb <pet...@sw.oz.au> writes:
>
>> I didn't think that slaters (woodlice) eat anything still living
>> just dead leafmould and the fungus that grows on it ...
>>
>SLATER-
>
>* Attacks young seedlings and invades older plants where there is a
> wound or some rot already developed;
> You cannot always extrapolate between ecologies, but it is very
Agree.
> rare in
> the UK for these to cause serious damage. In general, they are
> symptoms
> of some other problem rather than the cause.
>
> In compost heaps, of course, they are positively beneficial :-)
I had never thought of slaters as being anything else than, well, slaters,
quite harmless and hiding in damp places. We have a name for them in Russian
which simply means 'creatures of the damp' (loosely translated).
This was my appreciation of them until I read the reference to them (which I
quoted in full) in a (Australian) publication called Controlling Garden Pests
and Diseases.
I now see slaters in a different light and keep a watchful eye on their
presence whenever I have seedlings - just to be on the safe side you
understand :-).
What they, or any creature, may do to my compost heaps is their business- I
only wish they would do it more quickly :-).