site logo

The Colorado Potato Beetle Observations And Studies


Watch for the first appearance of the adult beetles in the spring when the potatoes are just beginning to come up. They pass the winter under ground and in the spring come out ready to lay eggs on the young potatoes. Collect and examine the adults. How many stripes have they? Collect packets of eggs and count them. How many eggs in most packets? How are they attached to the leaf? How large are the grubs when they hatch from the egg? Examine the grubs where they are feeding on pot

toes. Do they eat holes through the leaf, or do they eat away the entire leaf? How fast do they grow? Collect a few in a glass tumbler. Feed them and watch them grow. What do they do when you touch them? What does the hard backed beetle do when it is touched? Collect some of the large grubs with tightly stuffed bodies and put them in a jar with dirt or sand and see where they go. After a week dig them out and see what they look like.



Write a short description of the eggs, grubs and beetle, its work and means of killing it when it is feeding on potatoes. Make careful drawings of a cluster of eggs, the grub and the beetle.





More

;