Common Potato Pests

Leaf Pests

• Colorado potato beetles and their larvae cause the most serious damage to potato plants, capable of stripping all of the leaves off the plants. Flea beetles, tiny dark insects, chew holes in the leaves of only young potato plants. Potato aphids and green peach aphids feed on the undersides of leaves and can transmit plant diseases, and blister beetles are dark slender insects that leave trails of black excrement on chewed leaves.

Stem Pests

• Potato leafhoppers feed on the juices of the potato plant by attacking the stems and large veins at the base of the leaves. Curling or yellowing leaf tips are the first signs of leafhopper problems. The larvae of the European corn borer moth destroys potato crops by burrowing into and depleting the plant stems of nutrients. This pest is found primarily along the Eastern Seaboard states, west into Oklahoma and along the southern Gulf Coast.

Root Pests

• Most insects that attack potato roots are types of worms or the larvae of beetles. In addition to white grubs, which are the most destructive beetle larvae, root and tuber damage is caused by cutworms, which are moth caterpillars, and root knot nematodes, microscopic roundworms that feed on potato plant roots. Wireworms, similar in appearance to the mealworms sold as pet food, cause multi-seasonal destruction because they take up to four years to mature.

Rodent Pests

• Moles, which tunnel into potato hills in search of worms and insects to eat, often get blamed for the destruction of potato crops. However, pocket gophers, field mice and voles use the mole tunnels in order to feed on the potatoes growing underground. These small rodents are capable of eating entire potatoes, leaving nothing but empty skins, and are an extensive problem on organic potato farms in the western states.