Stink Bugs
Shield-shaped bugs about half an inch long, green or brown, that stab fruit and pods to feed. The plant looks healthy; the damage shows up inside the tomato as pale cloudy patches and on bean pods as raised warty bumps.
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.
1Knock them into soapy water
Hold a wide container under the plant, tap the stem, and the bugs drop straight in. Early morning is easiest, when they are slow.
Try this first2Scrape off the egg clusters
Check leaf undersides once a week and rub off the barrel-shaped egg rafts before they hatch.
3Cut back the hiding places
Mow tall weeds around the garden and skip thick loose mulch on fruiting beds, since both give the bugs cover.
4Treat nymphs only
If you find a lot of small wingless nymphs, insecticidal soap or a neem or pyrethrin product will kill them; grown adults will not be bothered.
insecticidal soap concentrate garden
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Which plants get stink bugs
Every plant we cover that gets stink bugs, 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.
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 9 affected plants.
- Fabaceae3 plants
- Solanaceae3 plants
When to treat
Watch fruiting plants from midsummer into fall and pick bugs off by hand, because sprays only touch the young nymphs and the adults keep flying back in from outside the garden.
Timing only — the label is the law
This page tells you when to watch for stink bugs 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 stink bugs, 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.