Eggplant leaf damage
 

Any guesses on who's been eating my eggplant leaves? This damage is on sort of an expendable plant that I put in one of my raised beds as an experiment (to compare with the same variety grown in a kratky bucket). The damage occurred over the course of a week or two and other than a very small dwarf sweet scarlet tomato planted nearby, none of the other plants in the bed are affected. The damaged plants are in the corner of the bed closest to a huge artichoke plant across a pathway. Thinking it might be earwigs, I put out shallow plastic cups of olive oil and soy sauce, but didn't catch any earwigs. I've also put out Sluggo Plus....

I clipped off these damaged leaves and there are several undamaged leaves higher up and a little eggplant is actually starting to form. The whole plant is probably under 6 inches tall at this point.

So any idea of what's going on and what to do about it?

Thanks!
Anne

Could be flea beetles - they LOVE eggplant.

Look for these on the leaves. They are small, only about 1/8th of an inch.

With damage that heavy, I'd be looking for Colorado potato beetle or cucumber beetle larvae. Check all over for little brownish grubs under the leaves and remove them diligently and repeatedly, starting with a blast of water perhaps.

Flea beetles make little round holes, not damage like that. I would check the undersides for small caterpillars.

I've seen a lot of bugs that'll eat on leaves like that, including potato bugs. If it was me, I'd be after it with Sevin, either dust or liquid ASAP

Flea beetles but above says no. I get tortoise beetles every year at the beginning of the season that chomp on some of my plants. Weird looking little creatures. I tend to cover mine until they get big enough to overcome any damage.

Sorry for taking so long to reply to this thread (time flies:shock:). Thanks for all the comments. I havn't seen any beetles, but on closer inspection of the little olive oil and soy sauce traps I'd set out, I did see some earwigs. I didn't see them at first because I need new glasses :dizzy: and they were sort of disguised by the soy sauce (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it ;)).

So I suspect that the earwigs are the culprit. The area of the damaged plants is about 3 feet away from a huge artichoke plant that's loaded with earwigs so it makes sense. As things aren't growing that well in that area anyway, I'm not going to worry about it any more right now (just sluggo plus) and concentrate a bit more on other areas of the garden.

Since I've taken a couple growing spots out of circulation for the time being, I've got a couple of dwarfs plus more eggplant and peppers started in Kratky that I'm somewhat impressed with. I'll post an update soon to my 2021 dwarf garden thread :).

Anne

The last time I had eggplants laced up like that it was southern army worms that did it but you probably don't have those where you are. It could be you had some kind of worms that got their belly full and dropped off, leaving you no clue. If you find any kind of caterpillar I'd recommend spraying with bT.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've been meaning to ask.... I have some mosquito bits that are basically BT (I think). Does anyone know if I could somehow use mosquito bits soak water as a BT spray? TIA!

Anne

Not flea beetle . Maybe other kind of beetle.

Flea beetles make smaller perforation.

Simple solution is covering with nylon tulle.You can find them in any fabric store, even WM fabrics section. It can prevent any beetle or insect.

After ignoring it for a while, I finally reassessed the situation when out fertilizing my other plants today. No more evidence of bug damage and my pepper plant, eggplant, and Wild Fred tomato are starting to make a comeback :shock:. I guess the Sluggo Plus finally started working! :D

Sweet Scarlett was a goner, though, so I'll put in a backup and dare the eggplant to touch it :twisted:

Thanks again for all the input.

Anne