Source: NURSERY MAG, 9/8/21


Red-headed flea beetle (RHFB) adults, Systena frontalis, feed on many ornamentals in container nursery production making plants unmarketable due to skeletonizing or holes in leaves. I know of or have heard grower concerns with this insect throughout the Southeast, Northeast, and in Ohio and Michigan. It is native to the majority of the United States. I don’t know exactly when RHFB became a problem for container nursery growers. It seems to have coincided with or followed the Great Recession of December 2007 through June 2009. Traditional management has consisted of repeated adult foliar sprays. In 2017 I surveyed eastern North Carolina growers and found that acephate, bifenthrin, carbaryl, and chlorpyrifos were most commonly used to manage adult...

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