The one pest I can’t seem to keep at bay are the stinkbugs. Both the green and brown ones. What can I use? Chemical, organic, hell fire, I don’t care!
They ruin my peaches by piercing holes in them. Then they get sap spots and many don’t ripen properly.
Really good question! Are there any beneficials ( or otherwise) that prey on or parasitise stink bugs? Dan
I do a regular spray program about every 2 weeks for insects and fungi. Otherwise my fruit will be attacked. use whatever you feel safe with. If you have kids you can use “Eight” which is Permethrin. Which is used to remove lice in kids hair. Permethrin was discovered in 1973. It is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system.
I’m not sure how effective it is in killing stink bugs, but I do know they will not enter a sprayed area. it is used to keep stink bugs out of houses.
You are allowed to make 8 applications on peaches in a season.
No restrictions on time you could use it everyday , well for eight days. I would use it once every 2 weeks with no more than 8 applications.Do not spray 7 days before harvest.
Last year the stinkbugs made my Korean Giant pears look like a rocky mountain with all the humps. The surround didn’t seem to help much. This year I bagged early and the surviving pears seem to have escaped the stinkbug. I haven’t seen as many SB this year so that might the the reason for no damage.
I used footies to bag my peaches. The stinkbugs just stab through.
its a bad year for them here as well. been spraying every couple weeks and there still getting the fruit.
Surround works for me.
Also I think after a few years into having an orchard you get enough predators moving in to really thin them out. Not many predators go after them but the few that do really like them. But the predators take awhile to show up in your orchard. I know I have some predator wasps because I saw them infecting them.
Now all I need is some predators for squirrels, deer, crows, groundhogs, etc to move in 
I’ve noticed more stink bug damage in our peaches as well. Thankfully they are mostly acting as a thinning agent as we left some extras on the trees anyway.
Get yourself some chickens, let them roam your orchard in the evening rounding them up at dark, they have destroyed our stink bug problem here. Also, as Scott states above, wasps will help as well. We had big problems here until we got chickens, only problem is the chickens will eat your low hanging fruit, but at least they take care of the stinkbugs and other pests, They also lay the best eggs you can imagine, so good!! And to boot, they help fertilize your trees, a win, win situation!
Clemson bags are excellent here, no stink bug damage, no Japanese beetle damage, no OFM damage, and I pick my fruits soft ripe. I also did not spray anything since June 10. I see them on my tomato plants, but no damage to my tree fruits.
What are “Clemson bags?”
Here is a link to them.bb
https://www.clemson.edu/extension/peach/commercial/diseases/clemsonfruitbags.html
Looks like they work on at least apples and peaches, and I presume on other fruits as well? I like the idea of bagging, not because I necessarily need to be strictly organic, but I find that even with sprays it’s hard to keep things at bay.
Especially since the “good stuff” regarding sprays is hard to come by if you’re not commercial.
I use it on peaches, apricots and plums. They are also reusable, so after picking my cots, I move them to peaches and plums, and at the end of the season I store them for next year. Send will get contaminated from a few diseased fruits, those I either throw away or spray with bleach. Like your thinking, I use them in combination with spraying, so that I don’t have to spray through out the season and they also offer complete protection from birds.
The issue I had was I thinned my peaches at thumbnail size, put the footies on them, and then, two thirds of the remainder still dropped after that around just under ping-pong size.
