What's eating my leaves?

After much googling I can't come up with a good idea of what to do about an unknown creature gnawing away at my 2nd year Cascades. I did find a tiny spider today, the first of any bug I've seen on them. Could it all be him? What say you, what's doing this and what should I do about it?

I can't see the pics but what about slugs? they would eat at night and you wouldn't see them during the day. Just a guess here, I don't know if slugs would eat them.

Somebody please help this guy!! I have the same problem so I am interested in the answer as well. I am starting to see some browning at the ends around the eaten parts as well. I do think that is over fertilization, but I still have the chewed parts.

I can tell you it's not that spider. Spiders eat bugs that eat plants. Keep the spider.

1977Brewer said:

I can tell you it's not that spider. Spiders eat bugs that eat plants. Keep the spider.

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Thanks! I almost squashed him but decided to give him a stay of execution in order to appeal to HBT. Motion granted, he lives.

I had terrible time last yr. w/ japbeetles. Investigating found; they are in the East(mostly???), they get worse and worse if not checked, they overwinter in the soil, and are best treated with Milky Spore, or bacillus popolli, which lives in the soil for up to 15 yrs. and is harmless to humans.
You may need to start w/ an ag spray like diazinon and be careful if crop to be used as food. It's better to get all caught up w/ spraying even if you have to lose a harvest year.
Good idea to run hops up poles which are hinged, and can be lowered for spraying. Leave a loop in the vines to allow for curvature; I was not prepared and had to use a can of Raid tied to the end of a 20foot pole. Freak show for the neighbors.

I am not saying it was Aliens, but it was aliens.

I just removed the leaves for the first 20 inches of my bines and dusted the ground with a food safe pesticide. I figure this should help I will let you guys know soon if it had any help on damage control.

Slugs are pretty bad here this year. We just put some slug bait out a couple days ago. My arch-nemeses are those big, bright green caterpillars, but I haven't seen any of those !%$*$#@!mother%$#*!^* yet this year. Plus those rotten ^%@#$ will eat every single leaf off of a plant overnight. Can't remember what they're called, too lazy to Google.

not sure what got to them, but diatomaceous earth is your friend - takes out most every nasty there is and no bed side-effects - kinda like star-san for hops, dont fear the flakes

Send a photo or take a sample to your county extension office. http://extension.uga.edu/about/county/index.cfm

It doesn't look like any insect or disease. It looks like physical damage (wind whipping leaves around). Slugs need moist areas and typically feed on lower leaves first. Japanese beetles feed between leaf veins and cause what is characterized as skeletonized.

lump42 said:

Send a photo or take a sample to your county extension office. http://extension.uga.edu/about/county/index.cfm

It doesn't look like any insect or disease. It looks like physical damage (wind whipping leaves around). Slugs need moist areas and typically feed on lower leaves first. Japanese beetles feed between leaf veins and cause what is characterized as skeletonized.

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Thanks for all the replies. Now that you mention it, physical damage does seem plausible. I have them growing up a tomato cage before training them onto twine that heads up to the roof. The damaged leaves (there's only 5 or so of them, the rest are healthy) are generally on the cage close to where the twine runs alongside it. There's been a lot of windy days lately so it's definitely possible they just got beat up. None of the higher leaves have any damage.

I looked up pics of a Japanese beetle infestation, its definitely a different pattern that.

I'll keep an eye on them and see if any more leaves have trouble.

As a follow up, it doesn't appear it was a pest. Maybe one or two more leaves have gotten similar damage, but it's definitely not an infestation. I'm glad I just RDWAHAHB instead of went nuts with pesticides!