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Colorado Potato Beetle

Colorado Potato Beetle

Leptinotarsa decemlineata

Insectalso: Potato bug, CPB

A boldly striped beetle that, with its hump-backed red grubs, can strip a potato or eggplant of every leaf. It is a famously stubborn pest, quick to rebound and notorious for shrugging off insecticides, so hands-on control in the home garden is the surest route.

🔎 How to spot it

The adult is a rounded, half-inch beetle with ten black lengthwise stripes on yellow wing covers and an orange, black-spotted area behind the head. Clusters of bright yellow-orange eggs stand on end on leaf undersides, and the larvae are plump, humpbacked grubs, brick-red to salmon with a black head and two rows of black spots down each side. All stages are usually found together on the plant.

🥀 Damage it causes

Both the grubs and the adults eat the leaves and can completely defoliate a plant; the large, late-stage grubs do the great bulk of the feeding. Repeated defoliation slashes potato yields and can kill eggplant and young plants. Potato is the main host, along with eggplant, and sometimes tomato and pepper.

🛡️ Prevent it

Rotate nightshade crops as far as possible from where they grew the year before, since the beetles overwinter in the soil nearby and rotation delays and reduces their arrival. Mulch potatoes deeply with straw, which hampers the beetles, and cover plants with row cover until flowering. Scout early and often so you catch the first overwintered adults before they lay.

🧯 If it is already here

Handpick adults, crush the orange egg clusters on the leaf undersides, and knock the grubs into soapy water; in a garden, daily picking through the early generation keeps the beetle in check. Target the small young grubs if you treat, using spinosad or Bacillus thuringiensis var. tenebrionis, a strain specific to leaf beetles. Rotate any products, because this beetle develops resistance fast.

💡 Good to know

The Colorado potato beetle is legendary for evolving resistance to insecticide after insecticide, which is exactly why rotation, mulch, and handpicking are the backbone of home-garden control. Concentrate on the small larvae and the egg stage: the fourth and largest grub stage alone does about 85 percent of the feeding, so stopping them young saves the plant.

🌱 Plants it attacks

73 plants in the library can be attacked by this pest

Adirondack Blue PotatoAji Amarillo Pepper🥔All Blue PotatoAmish Paste TomatoAnaheim PepperBanana PepperBeauregard Sweet Potato🍅Beefmaster TomatoBetter Boy Tomato🍅Big Beef TomatoBig Boy TomatoBlack Beauty EggplantBlack Cherry TomatoBlack Krim Tomato🍅Box Car Willie TomatoBrandywine TomatoCarolina Reaper PepperCayenne PepperCelebrity TomatoCherokee Purple TomatoCubanelle PepperEarly Girl TomatoFairy Tale EggplantFingerling PotatoFresno PepperGerman Butterball Potato🍅German Queen TomatoGhost PepperGreen Bell PepperGreen Zebra TomatoHabanero PepperHungarian Wax PepperIndigo Rose TomatoItalian EggplantJalapeño PepperJapanese EggplantJuliet Grape TomatoKellogg's Breakfast TomatoKennebec Potato🍅La Roma IV TomatoLemon Boy Tomato🍅Mortgage Lifter TomatoMr. Stripey TomatoNorland PotatoOrange Bell PepperPadrón PepperPimento PepperPineapple TomatoPoblano PepperPurple Bell Pepper🥔Purple Majesty PotatoPurple TomatilloRed Bell PepperRed Pontiac PotatoRoma Tomato🍆Rosa Bianca EggplantRusset Potato🍅Rutgers TomatoSan Marzano TomatoScotch Bonnet PepperSerrano PepperShishito Pepper🍅Striped German Tomato🍅Sungold Cherry TomatoSweet 100 Cherry TomatoSweet Banana PepperThai Chili Pepper🍅Tiny Tim Cherry TomatoToma Verde TomatilloTrinidad Scorpion PepperYellow Bell PepperYellow Pear TomatoYukon Gold Potato

For educational and informational purposes only. Pest control advice is general guidance drawn from university cooperative extension sources; always identify a pest positively and read and follow the label on any product before use, especially around food crops, children, and pets.