Source: NCSU state cooperative service.
This is an observation on the harlequin bug. Same size and shape as a stink bug, but gaudy. They are piercing-sucking insects, and they are a pest of brassicas. That category includes mustard.
I have them in my garden for the first time ever.
To cut to the chase: I believe the harlequin bug is attracted to the cut (but still living) stems of my mustard plants.
So if you cut your mustard while it’s still slightly green, or your mustard plants vary greatly in maturity at time of harvest, any still-living stubble from that cutting may attract the harlequin bug.
This is plausible. at least. These bugs are, in fact, sap-suckers. I’m just saying that it appears they were drawn by the smell of the raw cut green stem ends.
This is my one experience with these, so who knows. I present the evidence as follows:
- I grew a lot of mustard last year, and I never saw these.
- But last year, I let the mustard go completely dry before I cut it.
- I grew a lot of mustard this year as well, and I never saw these.
- Then I cut a third of my plants down on 7/9/2023, or four days ago.
- As directed, I tried to cut them just below where the seed pods form.
- The lower portions of a fair number of the larger pants survived.
- Less than four days later, those bugs were all over a handful of large cut stems.
- But there were none in the (much larger) beds of mustard were still uncut.
So, grow it and cut it down dry? No H-bugs. Grow it again. Still no H-bugs. Cut it down green? Four days later, and I’m infested. But only where those green cut stems are.
Maybe that’s all coincidence. I think not.
I’m just getting it down in writing. I don’t see this being said elsewhere on the internet.
