Colorado Potato Beetle
This problem spreads through handling, insects or soil rather than the weather, so there is no live forecast risk — focus on prevention below.
When it strikes
About
The Colorado potato beetle is the most important insect pest of potatoes and also attacks tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, defoliating plants rapidly and notorious for developing insecticide resistance.
Symptoms
Rounded yellow-and-black striped beetles, plump orange-red humpbacked larvae, clusters of orange eggs under leaves, and rapid defoliation that can strip plants bare.
Organic Treatment
Hand-pick adults, larvae and egg clusters daily, mulch deeply, spray spinosad or Bt tenebrionis, and rotate potatoes far from last year's bed.
Chemical Treatment
Spinosad or novel-chemistry insecticides, strictly rotated by mode of action because this beetle resists most products quickly.
Prevention
Rotate solanaceous crops widely, use straw mulch and trap crops, cover early growth, and destroy overwintering adults in spring.