The Colorado Beetle Arrives in Benton County
A district horticultural inspector warns local potato growers that a destructive new pest has been identified near Sunnyside.
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The Colorado Potato Beetle has been found in some of the potato patches east of Sunnyside. To any who have had to fight this beetle in the east, this is sufficient to warn them that they must take every precaution possible to keep this pest out of the potato patches of Benton county and if it does get in, to eradicate it. The adult beetle, which is about a half inch long, rounded, yellow in color, but striped with ten black lines, passes the winter in the ground. When the potato plants come up in the spring, the beetles appear to feed on the leaves and lay eggs. In a week, small plump slugs hatch which feed on the foliage for some three weeks. Any potato grower who feels that he needs assistance in this work and will call on me, I will only be too glad to help him in every way I can.
“Let us remember the old adage: ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.’”
Agricultural pests remain a primary concern for the Tri-Cities' irrigation-based economy. This 1916 alert mirrors the persistent, ongoing struggle of modern farmers to balance crop yields with the prevention of invasive species without over-relying on chemical intervention.
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