Home Microfarms Forest farms Technical Support Contact Us

Green stink bugs

Stink bugs are one half inch in length and green or brown in color. As their names imply, they emit an unpleasant odor when crushed. They do their damage by sucking the sap out of developing pea and bean pods. Stink bugs can also be seen in numbers on ripe tomatoes, puncturing and damaging the fruit.

The green stinkbug is shown in the photo. At times each species may be found in damaging numbers, but more often they occur in mixed populations.

Damage is caused by the nymphs and adults sucking sap from the bean pods. This sucking reduces the quality of the beans. And if the beans are small when they are attacked, they do not develop. In severe cases complete loss of beans occurs.

Most stinkbugs overwinter as adults in sheltered places, such as fence rows, ditch banks, and other places where plant remnants are abundant. Adults begin laying eggs in early spring. They usually build up on vegetables and dogwoods. A generation is produced every 5-6 weeks.

They are not generally found on soybeans until the pods begin to form. But by mid-September they are usually present in damaging numbers and can damage beans up until harvest time.

Organic control: Hand picking with gloves is difficult. Spraying with soap and water may help.

Stink bugs are broad shield-back insects with piercing-sucking mouthparts. Stink bug feeding damage on white druplets and fruit causes them to taste like stink bugs. Adult stink bugs overwinter in protected areas like under rocks, bark and fencerow debris. Proper sanitation methods in your planting will help remove some of these overwintering sites. The green stink bug is � -1 inch in length. The brown stink bug is � inch in length while the dusky stink bug is 3/8 inch in length. Stink bugs are thought to have two generations per year in Arkansas. All stink bugs have piercing sucking mouthparts and feed on plant fluids. Stink bugs are strong fliers. They have five immature stages before becoming adults. It takes five weeks from egg hatch to adult stage. One female will lay several hundred eggs in her lifetime.

Monitoring: No thresholds are currently in use within the commercial industry. Inspect canes weekly for immature and adult stink bugs, beginning in late May through harvest.

Cultural Control: Groundcover practices that eliminate seed heads and flowering broadleaf weeds in and around plantings will minimize the amount of stink bugs found in the plantings.

Copyright © 2022 Forest Farms International