Pill Bugs?

[big rockpile]

Pill Bugs good, bad,????

big rockpile

 

[roadrunner]

They're good. I believe they are the unsung heroes of the garden, they are the first line detritivores that start the breakdown of organic matter.

 

[big rockpile]

It was very questionable because reading what you say then goes on to say if you have too many they will kill seedlings.

big rockpile

 

[cpp gardener]

It depends on how many you have. If they run out of dead plant material they will eat seedlings and small roots of larger plants. We have lost quite a few plants in a new area where they ate all the organic mater from container soil and started in on the exposed roots.
Try either true pyrethrum or one of the new pyrethroid insecticides. We've used Talstar (bifenthrin) and had some success.

 

[big rockpile]

It depends on how many you have. If they run out of dead plant material they will eat seedlings and small roots of larger plants. We have lost quite a few plants in a new area where they ate all the organic mater from container soil and started in on the exposed roots.
Try either true pyrethrum or one of the new pyrethroid insecticides. We've used Talstar (bifenthrin) and had some success.

Will it hurt Microbs?

big rockpile

 

[roadrunner]

It was very questionable because reading what you say then goes on to say if you have too many they will kill seedlings.

big rockpile

I have tons and tons of them, they don't eat my seedlings, at least that I've noticed. I agree they do sometimes eat seedling (very small seedlings).

However, the concern is not about how many pill bugs are in the garden, rather how much organic matter is available for them to eat. I'm always doing chop-and-drop and always have a healthy layer of mulch; therefore, a very healthy population of pill bugs.

They are detritivores, therefore they primarily eat non-living organic matter. I assume I've lost a few seedlings to them (but I've never witnessed this), but not enough be a problem.

I do wonder how many people blame pill bugs on eating seedlings, solely based on the number of pill bugs they see. There are many more things in the garden that readily eat seedlings than pill bugs.

 

[big rockpile]

I wanted make sure. All of a sudden seeing several.

big rockpile

 

[cpp gardener]

When the ground seems to undulate ahead of you and then you notice that it's actually sowbugs..... you have an overabundance. There was 4" of mulch, after 6 months there is none left and the plants are bareroot. Repeated doses of Talstar slowed the onslaught enough that things stopped dieing on a weekly basis. Kept down the grasshopper population too.