where's Tad... "red Lily beetle" question

Gary Majchrzak

Gary Majchrzak

Team RC
a new type of beetle (to me) is attacking my wife's spectacular Lily plants. They appear to be attracted to ONLY Lily plants (Asiatic or Tigers).
The beetles are bright red. After mating it appears they lay eggs and surround the larvae with digested leaf parts. (The lady at the local garden place said it was dung but I don't think so. I might be wrong.) Some pix.

adult in situ. Forming a "dung mound" if you look really close by mouth.
lily_redbeetle.jpg


macro
lily_redbeetle2.jpg


dung pile? I don't think so. It's eating a trail!
lily_redbeetle3.jpg
 
Yup, you IDed it correctly. The Lily Leaf Beetle is a relatively new invasive pest to the Northeast. The lily plants in the Discovery Garden here at the museum were hit hard this spring by them, and when we did our ladybug roundup in the garden last month we had many people confuse these beetles for ladybugs.

Physical control is probably your best choice to deal with them, by picking off the adults and larvae as you see them. I'm not a big fan of broad spectrum pesticides since they tend to kill everything, good, bad or neutral.

The poo piles you see are the beetle larvae (grubs) eating the plants. For protection they cover themselves in their feces/frass.
 
not a bad looking beetle....

not a bad looking beetle....

but they're picking on the WRONG person's Lily plants.

(Wife wins all the time)
 
tropills said:
They love turf also, we broadcast spray for them at the golf course at least twice a month ..
Click to expand...

If you ever get a chance to take a picture of what is eating the turf I'd be curious to see it. I believe that these are dependant on the lily family of plants to reproduce and generally don't go after much else.
 
interesting you should bring this thread up, Scott.

The beetles made another appearance back here. I used a product called Sevin to get rid of them. It's REALLY effective on these guys.

I was running out of spray bottle (packaging) Sevin and I added water to the bottle. Even diluted Sevin will do a number on these bugs.

Taking it a step further Lowe's was running a special on Seven concentrate. You hook the bottle up to the end of your lawn hose and spray. Look out pests!

Incidentally, I was just admiring my plum tree out front today. Ever since I moved in here 8 or 9 years ago it looked extremely unhealthy. I'm not sure what was attacking it, but I sprayed the entire tree with Sevin. The tree has never looked better.
 
Gary have you tried the powder version of sevin? I use it on my roses, lilies and dahlias and it works great. I get those little green bugs every year but the powder wipes them out. It stays on the leaves for a week so it may look bad but any bug that goes over it or you shake it onto will die overnight.
 
I haven't tried the powder version.
My plum tree is 20 ft high so powder isn't an option for that one.
It's been a dry spring and normally this tree would look like crap. I've done a lot of things to try and bring it back to health but it looks like Sevin did the trick.
 
We have a small handful of these plants, so I dusted them with Sevin. I usually don't like to use that stuff since it kills everything,including beneficial insects. Since this is such a small area, I don't mind using the nasty stuff this time.
 
Conesus_Kid said:
We have a small handful of these plants, so I dusted them with Sevin. I usually don't like to use that stuff since it kills everything,including beneficial insects. Since this is such a small area, I don't mind using the nasty stuff this time.
Click to expand...

I agree that its pretty nasty stuff when it comes to not being a selective killer. I usually leave it on for 2 days then hose down the plants with a hose unless rain is expected for a few days in a row. 1-2 days of it on your plants will kill almost anything.
 
Good thread! I have these little guys on my lily's as well, I have been leaving them be. I guess I will have to take them out. They are my wifes favorite plants as well.
 
+1 on the Sevin. We have them here in Ct also, at least I do. Although, for me the Sevin just kind of keeps them in check, but doesn't totally eliminate them. Maybe it's like AEFW, (which I don't have, as I knock on wood), it kills the adults, but not the eggs.
 
oh man, I went outside today to check out the flowers and these little SOB's did a number on my lily plants. Leaves all eaten and S@#t covered larvae all over the underside of the few remaining leaves. I went to homedepot and got some Sevin. I hope it works quickly.
 
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