Under this sort of pressure applying neonics to plants while they were in the tray or that were drenched at planting (which is usually sufficient) often will not be enough to hold back beetle transmission of the bacteria 7-10 days after treatment. Foliar sprays with pyrethroids would be needed. But how do you know when more beetles are going to act as vectors—you don’t. And that is the problem, next year do you over treat because of one outlier season or continue with what you have been doing? My guess is that this is a onetime blip that so many more beetles were infective than normal. If your cantaloupe or cucumber plants look good and do not have any more than the usual amount of bacterial wilt you can consider your striped cucumber beetle management to be good.
US (MD): Bacterial wilt problems in cucurbits
Under this sort of pressure applying neonics to plants while they were in the tray or that were drenched at planting (which is usually sufficient) often will not be enough to hold back beetle transmission of the bacteria 7-10 days after treatment. Foliar sprays with pyrethroids would be needed. But how do you know when more beetles are going to act as vectors—you don’t. And that is the problem, next year do you over treat because of one outlier season or continue with what you have been doing? My guess is that this is a onetime blip that so many more beetles were infective than normal. If your cantaloupe or cucumber plants look good and do not have any more than the usual amount of bacterial wilt you can consider your striped cucumber beetle management to be good.