simy1 said:

This year for the first time I have been using Rotenone regularly in my
garden. I am fairly happy with the results. The brassica are
unblemished by cabbageworms, and huge. I sprayed the base of the
zucchini, and so far there is no sign of vine borers. Both used to be a
regular occurrence in the past.

I finally gave up on being virtuous and a started spraying my peppers with
malathion (to combat pepper maggots). I also hit the bases of my squash
plants with it, too. Not so much sign of squash borers.

But all my cucumbers (4) and all the winter quash (3) show signs of
bacterial wilt. Soon zucchini, melons and watermelons may follow. I
sprayed them irregularly, for fear of killing pollinators. Indeed some
of the melons have only one fruit, and the zucchini and string beans
have gone through a dry period, so I may have done something bad.

The recent stretches of hot, humid weather (with the very warm nights)
didn't help...

Downy mildew is the big worry for cucurbits in Michigan this summer:
http://www.ipm.msu.edu/cat06veg/v07-26-06.htm#1

(It was even mentioned in the Detroit Free Press.)

Last
week I used a paintbrush to pollinate things by hand. I inspected the
cuke flowers two days ago and I found a cucumber beetle (striped) every
second flower.

The cukes are fairly advanced in the disease but they have all produced
their share. The winter squash are still going through the all male
flowers period, barely show signs, but I suspect I will lose the crop
(as well as 80 sqft of garden use, they are huge plants). No signs yet
in the other plants. I wonder how others manage cuke beetles, specially
during blooming.

Winter squash usually tolerates bacterial wilt pretty well. It's cucumbers
and melons that inevitably die from it.

I gave up on growing melons and only grow cukes that don't require
pollination in a large screened-in box. I just was not willing to spray
as often with as potent an insecticide as would be required. Probably
the safest thing (bee-wise) would be a synthetic pyrethrin sprayed in
the late evening or *at night* but you pretty much have to hit the beetles
with it directly. Even one beetle feeding on a plant can infect it with wilt.

The most often recommended and potent pyrethroid formulations are
restricted use pesticides, brand names Ambush and Pounce. Commercial
growers also use Admire (active ingredient, Imidacloprid) as a soil
drench. It's a systemic insecticide, chemically kin to nicotine.

I used to use a product called Adios which is carbaryl encapsulated
with cucurbitacin, which acts as a bait. The beetles would feed on the
grains of Adios and die. I don't know what happened to this product
but since I haven't able to get it any more, I wasn't able to keep the
beetles from spreading bacterial wilt and so gave up growing melons.

--
Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast)

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(attributed to Don Marti)