Last Tuesday we first noticed the Rutherglen bug invasion our first since 2019. These small 4-5mm long grey/brown fast moving native bugs have a cross on their back from their folded wings. They are highly mobile, fast moving, highly migratory over large distances, and can invade in huge numbers during dry springs and early summers. They seem to have come from the west on winds we had last week, and have indeed arrived in vast numbers.
We hope you don’t have them in your garden, but if you do, maybe our experience can help…
Rutherglen bugs are sucking insects, feeding on sap from stems, leaves, flowers and sometimes fruit. They are attacking many of our crops, but their favourite seems to be the greens like silverbeet, chard, and lettuce, and even parsley that no other bug will eat!
It is nothing to have 4-500 of these critters on the back of a single silverbeet leaf, which they quickly turn to crisp, like it has been singed by a flame. Distressingly, some found their way into the Beach House and attacked the primary growing tip of our lebo cucumbers, turning those tips into crispy flakes. We hope they will recover by sucker shoots becoming the main growing point.
In addition to sucking the life out of plants, their mode of feeding means they are quickly spreading diseases like Cercospora fungi from plant to plant, and susceptible crops like silverbeet, chard, beetroot are greatly affected.
What to do? There are native parasitoid wasps that attack Rutherglen bug eggs and can aid in reducing their population over time, but we have no time to wait for that. The weapon we have deployed is pyrethrum, an extract from Chrysanthemum flowers, which is a powerful contact insecticide, and effective against Rutherglen bug. I have been spraying every second day, but wave after massive wave of invaders are arriving. We don’t give up, but it’s pretty overwhelming. Maybe 6” of rain will send them on their way?
The consequences for you are that some of our crops will be in short supply or completely missing until the invasion ceases and the plants can recover or be replaced. There are also so many of them that they are a contamination risk. We are double, triple and sometimes quadruple washing produce to get them out!
The consequences for us are yet to be determined. An event like this is a double whammy for farmers - expenses go up, and income comes down. Each week is a struggle to pay our team’s wages. We do what we can, patiently endure, trust we will survive and come out the others side, always look forward with hope to better days, and leave the rest with God.
Thank you for your understanding when things like this go amiss.
Rod