Greetings Air Potato Patrol!
We wanted to update you on what we have planned for this coming spring and summer and share some information you will hopefully find useful.
First: If you have any questions or want to contact us, the best way to do so is through our email at airpotatopatrol@gmail.com. Don’t forget our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/AirPotatoPatrol/. This is a great venue for asking questions and sharing pictures, so please like our page and follow the updates we post. There is a form for asking questions on our website, located at https://airpotatobeetle.com/contact-us/ (under the Contact Us tab), and I promise we will work at answering your questions in a timely manner!
Second: If you have questions on how to order beetles for your property this spring, most of those questions are covered in our last blog post here https://airpotatobeetle.com/program-updates-for-2020/
We do have members in states other than Florida now, so if you have any questions about availability to your state just contact me one of the ways listed above.
Third: Please don’t be shy about telling other people about us and what we’re doing! If you are a member of a garden club, civic organization or any other group, we have newsletter articles already written we are happy to share. If you want to have myself or one of our other team members come and speak to your group, please get in touch. I can’t make any guarantees that we will be available, but we will do our best to help if we can.
And finally- please let us know what you would like to know more about. Maybe it’s about the ‘behind the scenes’ activities that go into raising thousands of beetles a year. Or tutorial videos on questions you have about better controlling the vines or detecting beetles. Just let us know and we’ll see what we can do!
Thank you all for your help,
Bill Lester
UF/IFAS Extension Hernando County
wlester@ufl.edu
They are working great for me. Are we to replenish them at any point?
It all depends. Ideally the beetles will return each spring to feed on your vines. If for some reason they fail to return you would have to request more to release. One of the questions we are trying to answer is what affects their overwintering and why do the beetles establish well in some areas and not others.
I also found that they will show up at different times from year to year. I thought mine were gone two years ago but they appeared a few months later than the year before. They did the same thing last year. Showed up really late but it didn’t take long for them to do their thing and we had a severe case of vines!! They showed up at my sons house which is only 1/4 mile away a couple months before mine did.
What probably happened is you eventually had beetles arrive from a nearby property. If someone in the area orders beetles or theirs survive the winter well, the population grows, they fly and spread very well.
I would like to receive an article from you to put in a local newsletter.