Leafhoppers
Tiny wedge-shaped green insects, an eighth of an inch or less, that hop or fly off sideways the second you disturb a leaf. Their feeding injects a toxin, so leaf tips and edges curl up, yellow, and go brown and brittle as if scorched.
Pest checklist
Four things to look for. If most of them match what you are holding, you are in the right place.
What gets rid of them
Gentlest option first. For most backyard cases the first one is enough, so try these in order and stop as soon as it works. If you do spray something, the product label tells you how — please read the notice further down.
1Cover young plants
Row cover over beans and potatoes for the first few weeks keeps the migrating adults from settling and laying.
floating row cover garden fabricTry this first2Keep the weeds down
Cut perennial weeds around the garden, especially along fence lines, since they hold leafhoppers and their eggs.
3Wash the undersides
Insecticidal soap or horticultural oil aimed at leaf undersides kills nymphs on contact, but you have to hit them, so repeat.
insecticidal soap concentrate garden4Pick hairy-leaved varieties
Bean and potato varieties with fuzzy leaves are noticeably less attractive to leafhoppers.
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Which plants get leafhoppers
Every plant we cover that gets leafhoppers, grouped by type — tap any one to open its page. A note beside a plant came from that plant’s own entry, because the same pest can be a minor nuisance on one plant and a serious problem on another. Plenty of plants we do not cover get it too.
tree1
annuals6
Plant families hit hardest
Related plants often share the same problems, so if one plant in a family has it, check the others. The largest group here is Fabaceae, with 3 of the 12 affected plants.
- Fabaceae3 plants
- Cucurbitaceae2 plants
- Rosaceae2 plants
- Solanaceae2 plants
When to treat
Start checking bean and potato leaf undersides in June when they blow up from the south, and act at the first sign of curling tips, because scorched leaves do not recover.
Timing only — the label is the law
This page tells you when to watch for leafhoppers and when treating is worth considering. It is not a recommendation to apply any particular product. Read and follow the product label before you spray — under federal law the label is the legal instruction, and using a pesticide against it is illegal.
- Check the pre-harvest interval. Every product that’s cleared for an edible crop sets a minimum number of days between spraying and picking. Find it on the label before you spray anything you intend to eat.
- Check the re-entry interval before you or anyone else works in the treated area again, and use the protective equipment the label names.
- Confirm the product is registered for your crop in your state. This page groups many different crops together, and a product legal on one of them is not legal on all of them — state registrations differ too. Your state pesticide agency or local extension office can confirm both.
- Rates and mixing instructions come from the label, never from us. We don’t publish them because they differ by product and formulation.
Other problems on the same plants
If a plant gets leafhoppers, these are the problems it most often gets as well, so they are worth checking for while you are out there. They tend to appear together; one does not cause another.