Wertheim speaks to BDN about striped cucumber beetles

Frank Wertheim, agriculture and horticulture educator with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, was interviewed by the Bangor Daily News about the damage caused to crops by the striped cucumber beetle. Wertheim told the BDN that the beetle harbors a bacterium in its digestive tract that it passes along to plants when it defecates. “There are a lot of different diseases that cause wilting. But the one we see a lot is bacteria wilt from the striped cucumber beetle,” Wertheim said. Egreenews shared the BDN report.