Thursday, October 23, 2008
Dealing with English Boxwood Decline and spined soldier bugs
John Arbogast
Landscape consultant John Arbogast answers your questions every Thursday. Send questions about your lawn, garden, plants, or insects to:
Dear John
5102 Greenfield St. SW
Roanoke, Va. 24018
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Q: My father and I have raised and sold boxwoods for 50 years. Our trees have never experienced English Boxwood Decline. Some of our customers would come back to purchase replacement boxwoods because of EBD. Pop would visit the site at which the boxwoods were located. Our clients' boxwoods had contracted EBD because of improper planting. The problem boxwoods were often surrounded by heavy mulch or had had mulch mixed into the soil while they were being planted. The constant dampness from the mulch led to nematodes. I have heard folks say their boxwoods were killed by the "blight." I am guessing the nematode issue is what they were referring to. Most all of the affected boxwoods were in the southwest Roanoke area.
A: English Boxwood Decline, or EBD, is a fungal root disease for which pathologists have identified a causal fungus. I’m glad that you and your father have never experienced this disease during your 50 years of growing English boxwoods. The taller and faster-growing American boxwoods are not susceptible to this disease.
The confusing thing about EBD is that improper planting, misuse of mulch around the trees, nematodes, the boxwood problems that you spoke so truthfully about and drought can all cause the same symptoms as EBD, since all of these things can injure the way the boxwood's roots function.
I quickly learned early in my career that folks use the phrase "the blight" as a generalized descriptive term meaning that the given vegetable, landscape or fruit plant looked bad with anything from leaf spots, discoloration, brown/black areas, yellow leaves or anything that we humans might call "the blahs."
Unfortunately for diagnostic professionals like me who want to make an accurate control recommendation, the term "the blight" doesn’t give any clear clues to known symptoms of diseases, improper care, bad soil or other environmental conditions, watering or lack thereof, pests or any other known problem.
Q: Can you help out? I’m having a problem with brown marmorated stink bugs -- like the ones you recently wrote about. How can I get rid of them? The name of the bug I'm dealing with is the spined soldier bug. Do you have any advice? I have kids. Do these bugs bite?
A: If these are truly spined soldier bugs, you don’t have to worry about bites or damage to your home, children or plants. Confusion caused by the presence of the brown marmorated stink bugs in some locations means that you should take an un-crushed sample of a bug to your local Virginia Cooperative Extension office for identification or to be sent off to your state university’s insect lab. I encountered such confusion when I was searching for information on the spined soldier bug and first only found data on the soldier beetle, which is not a problem insect, does not infest houses and does not bite humans.
Adult spined soldier bugs are varied in color from yellowish to pale brownish and are covered with small black specks. They have a short black line on the wing tips, which extends beyond the abdomen. They are about half an inch long.
Adult spined soldier bugs are good bugs, as they prey on and eat "bad bugs." The prey of spined soldier bugs include many kinds of caterpillars and grubs. They are known to prey on the young stage of the fall armyworm and the Colorado potato beetle.
Spined soldier bugs are known to be one of the most prominent stink bugs in North America.
A: English Boxwood Decline, or EBD, is a fungal root disease for which pathologists have identified a causal fungus. I’m glad that you and your father have never experienced this disease during your 50 years of growing English boxwoods. The taller and faster-growing American boxwoods are not susceptible to this disease.
The confusing thing about EBD is that improper planting, misuse of mulch around the trees, nematodes, the boxwood problems that you spoke so truthfully about and drought can all cause the same symptoms as EBD, since all of these things can injure the way the boxwood's roots function.
I quickly learned early in my career that folks use the phrase "the blight" as a generalized descriptive term meaning that the given vegetable, landscape or fruit plant looked bad with anything from leaf spots, discoloration, brown/black areas, yellow leaves or anything that we humans might call "the blahs."
Unfortunately for diagnostic professionals like me who want to make an accurate control recommendation, the term "the blight" doesn’t give any clear clues to known symptoms of diseases, improper care, bad soil or other environmental conditions, watering or lack thereof, pests or any other known problem.
Q: Can you help out? I’m having a problem with brown marmorated stink bugs -- like the ones you recently wrote about. How can I get rid of them? The name of the bug I'm dealing with is the spined soldier bug. Do you have any advice? I have kids. Do these bugs bite?
A: If these are truly spined soldier bugs, you don’t have to worry about bites or damage to your home, children or plants. Confusion caused by the presence of the brown marmorated stink bugs in some locations means that you should take an un-crushed sample of a bug to your local Virginia Cooperative Extension office for identification or to be sent off to your state university’s insect lab. I encountered such confusion when I was searching for information on the spined soldier bug and first only found data on the soldier beetle, which is not a problem insect, does not infest houses and does not bite humans.
Adult spined soldier bugs are varied in color from yellowish to pale brownish and are covered with small black specks. They have a short black line on the wing tips, which extends beyond the abdomen. They are about half an inch long.
Adult spined soldier bugs are good bugs, as they prey on and eat "bad bugs." The prey of spined soldier bugs include many kinds of caterpillars and grubs. They are known to prey on the young stage of the fall armyworm and the Colorado potato beetle.
Spined soldier bugs are known to be one of the most prominent stink bugs in North America.
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