By Swati Mishra, 2021-2024 FFAR Fellow
Adorned in beautiful black and golden stripes, the Colorado potato beetle (CPB) is a perfect example of the saying, “all that glitters isn’t gold.” These charming and seemingly innocuous beetles cost potato farmers tens of millions of dollars annually. A single young beetle can eat up to 40 centimeters of leaf surface every day, which is about half the size of a sheet of copy paper. Combine that with a reproduction rate of about 500 eggs per female, leaving a potato field with nothing but plant skeletons.