Insect Management Handbook

Scutigerella immaculata

Pest description and crop damage Active, white, fragile, centipede-like, soil-borne relatives of insects, 0.25 inch in length, with 12 or more pairs of legs. They primarily damage sugar beets early in the season by feeding on germinating seeds or on small roots of seedlings.

Includes

Pale striped flea beetle (Systena elongate)
Three-spotted flea beetle (Disconycha triangularis)
Tuber flea beetle (Epitrix tuberis)
Western potato flea beetle (E. subcrinita)

Subterranean species include

Black cutworm (Agrotis ipsilon)
Glassy cutworm (Apamea devastator)
Redbacked cutworm (Euxoa ochrogaster)

Climbing species include

Silpha bituberosa

Pest description and crop damage Flattened, shiny black larva has a distinctly segmented body that tapers from head to abdomen. Adults are dull black, flattened, oblong-oval shaped, with ridges running lengthwise down wing covers. Feeding by larvae and adults appears as ragged or crushed leaf edges, especially on plants along field margins where adults overwinter.

Epicauta spp. and others

Pest description and crop damage Gray, black, spotted, or striped beetles 0.5 to 1 inch in length, with conspicuous necks and soft, rounded wing covers that leave the tip of the abdomen exposed. Larvae are beneficial predators of grasshopper eggs; damaging populations of leaf-feeding adult blister beetles are most likely where sugar beet fields closely border grasshopper breeding areas.

Circullifer tenellus

Pest description and crop damage Light yellow-green to gray-brown wedge-shaped body about 0.125 inch in length. These readily crawl and jump as nymphs or jump and fly as adults. They are most important as a vector of curly top virus; they are seldom numerous enough to cause feeding injury through sap sucking. Not all leafhoppers found in sugar beets are the true beet leafhopper.

Includes

Beet armyworm (Spodoptera exigua)

Bertha armyworm (Mamestra configurata)

Western yellowstriped armyworm (Spodoptera praefica)

Black bean aphid (Aphis fabae)

Green peach aphid (Myzus persicae)

Includes:

Sugar beet wireworm (Limonius californicus)
Western field wireworm (Limonius infuscatus)
Great Basin wireworm (Selatosomus pruinina)

Harmolita grandis