ATTRACT THESE GOOD BUGS TO YOUR GARDEN

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by Jeff Aldrich, Ph.D.

Make a homemade trap to collect these soldier bugs in early spring, then release them to control all kinds of garden pests.

As alternatives to toxic pesticides, scientists have developed a number of nontoxic lures to attract and trap pest insects. Perhaps most familiar are the Japanese beetle lures and traps. But these arid other pest lures usually dont work very well on the small scale of a home garden because they actually may attract more pests than initially were present.

There is one lure, developed by Jeff Aldrich, an entomologist with the U.S.Department of Agriculture, thatattracts oneof the best beneficial insects. Aldrich invitesMOTHER EARTHNEWS readers to help hire test this nifty homemade Soldier Bug Trap arid Nursery Technique. —MOTHER

Spined soldier bugs (Podisus maculiventris) are valuable beneficial insects in home gardens because they prey on a multitude of pests, including Mexican bean beetles, cabbage loopers, diamondback moths, army worms and other caterpillars, flea beetles and Colorado potato beetles. When prey is not available, soldier bugs survive by feeding on plant sap, without significantly harming the plant.

Spined soldier bugs can be found throughout the United States and Canada. They are more common in the East, especially around deciduous forests and meadows, which provide natural prey and cover for the adults to survive the winter.

So how can gardeners enlist the soldier bugs at the right time to combat garden pests?

The Soldier Bug Nursery has shown promising results for home gardeners as a pest control technique. The technique relies on a pheromone (a natural chemical attractant) produced by male soldier bugs, which we identified and patented in our research at the U.S. Department of Agriculture/ Agricultural Research Station's Insect Behavior Lab. It is available commercially as the Soldier Bug Attractor (available from Planet Natural, www.planetnatural.com ). You can use the Attractor to draw spined soldier bugs to your garden at any time.

With the nursery technique, you can trap the soldier bugs when they first emerge in spring (before they lay their eggs), store them in a nursery cage or the refrigerator and then move them into your garden, where they will lay eggs and produce hundreds of hungry nymphs.