hi everyone,

I'll try and be brief but detailed. Iv been growing my passion fruit plant since last year from a seed, I actually got the fruit from the dominican republic. Last year it grew a great amount but no fruit which i was expecting for the first year, and now thats its been nice outside (long island ny, zone 7) i started planter her outside.

Iv been noticing some of the leaves are being "chewed up" or at least holes in alot of them. she is in my front yard so she is exposed to alot of elements including bugs and today i actually spotted what looks like a beetle.

Iv included a few pictures, any help and how to nurse her back to health would be greatly appropriated












and this is the beetle that I found.

I have had lots of trouble with those same beetles for 3 years now. You may have more of them around. Best I could determine is that they are a bean beetle. They are highly driven by the color yellow. I found this out by leaving an empty Nestle quick container on the deck. It was for watering. The next day I had about 15 of these beetles drowned in there.
I went to the dollar store and bought a dozen yellow children's sand pails. I fill them a little more than 1/2 way with water and throw some baking soda and liquid dish soap. That is mainly because I do not want to take up mosquito farming. I put a stone in the bottom of each because they wanted to tip over. I set them around the garden. I caught hundreds of bean beetles and a few misc. bugs. I needed a slotted spoon to scoop them out. I only ever caught one lady bug. I also bought the children's buckets one each of blue, purple, green, red and orange. Only caught one bug in the red. Around your plants if you have something yellow to set out so they can drown themselves. I do not know your temperatures or zone, but shade and very, very , very diluted plant food can relieve her stress and give her the energy to recover. Good luck and may you have a joyful week!

Seeing the typical beetle damage... I was going to guess Japanese beetle.... Until I saw the bug pic...

Thanks to sharon for the detailed description on catching bean beetles... When the kudzu beetles show up again, I'll try it...

I just wanted to point out that passion flower is a butterfly host plant, and they don't seem to mind a bit of nibbling...

At my house the gulf fritillary butterfly and checkered fritillary lay eggs...

Occasionally I see the zebra longwing also laying eggs... Don't see much of the Florida state butterfly...

No telling what you'll get at your house... But... Those passion flowers are well able to tolerate being eaten.

Another yellow attractant that might be easier than the yellow bucket method is sticky traps or fly strips. I got yellow card sticky traps at the hardware store and I catch LOTS of bugs with those. Be careful though, they're very sticky. I hung one up near my orchids to catch thrips and accidentally got my hair stuck to it one day. Luckily my husband was nearby and came to free me.

As stone commented, as long as the beetles aren't defoliating your passion vine they can survive quite a lot of munching. They are a major butterfly host down here so they get chewed a lot by caterpillars from time to time. Always recover nicely. They're lusty, vigorous growing plants.

Wouldn't it be nice if an ADT system protected plants from pests too? Sorry, not helpful but I couldn't resist from the 1 pic...!

Hi all. I'm a new member and I'm having big trouble with my passionfruit vine this year. It is around 3 years old and I know they don't last all that long (so I have read), but this year something is destroying the flowers before they have a chance to fully open. It looks like the work of some type of grub, and I don't know how to get rid of it, given we want to eat the fruit if we actually end up with any. I would appreciate any advice coming from the group, thank you John.

Hi John, it's tough to advise on solving the problem if we don't know for sure what's causing it. Could you please post a picture of the damaged flowers? Also are the leaves being eaten as well?

It would help us to know where in the world you are, too.

Try going out at night with a flashlight and see if you can see a bug or caterpillar munching on the flowers. Many of them are active at night and hide during the day.

I've had squirrels eat the passion flowers once in a while, too. They're active during the day, so if you have a security camera you might be able to catch the culprit on video. If it's a critter not an insect, something as simple as a motion detector sprinkler will probably solve your problem (and water the plant, too). I've had one for years and they work great, even at night.