Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 14, 1990                   TAG: 9006130306
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-4   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Philip Blevins
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COLORADO POTATO BEETLES ARE DESTRUCTIVELY ABUNDANT THIS YEAR

This insect is a major pest of potatoes and eggplants, but it also will attack tomatoes and peppers.

The adult beetle is about 3/8 inches long and has spots on the front of its yellow body with 10 dark lines down the back.

It deposits orange-yellow eggs on the undersides of the leaves, from which hatch pinkish-red humpbacked larvae that have black spots along their sides.

These beetles were originally pests of the buffalo bur or sand bur along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.

However, as the settlers moved west in the mid-1800s and took potatoes with them, the beetle changed its choice of food and moved east from potato patch to potato patch.

Potato beetles can devour a potato plant. I was in a patch of potatoes recently that was planted in April, and the beetles have kept the plants eaten off at ground level.

How can they be controlled?

Plant potatoes as far away from the previous year's site as possible. Do not follow potatoes with peppers, eggplant or tomatoes on the same site.

Application of Rotenone, Sevin, Thiodan or Diazinon will help control all stages of the beetle.

M-One, a biological agent, will control the early larval stages.

If you change the oil in your vehicles or equipment, don't pour the used oil on the ground or into a waterway.

An article I read in The Debarker pointed out that just one gallon of oil can form a slick of nearly eight acres; one quart, when dispersed in water, can contaminate up to 2 million gallons of drinking water.

Improper disposal provides the potential for many problems. Recycling can help take care of this.

Used oil can be either reprocessed into heating oil or rerefined into lubricating oil.

By reprocessing, the 4.4 million gallons of oil wasted in Virginia each year could be used to heat the equivalent of 6,000 Virginia homes for an entire year.

Through re-refining, 2.75 million gallons of clean lubricating oil could be obtained from the 4.4 million gallons of waste.

Check with your locality about recycling centers that take used oil.

In Montgomery County, used oil can be taken to a collection site at the county landfill.

Be sure not to put it in your garbage; the workers do not sort it out.