Ugly bug eating my iochroma

These suddenly appeared. They are little(1/2 inch or less), maggot like and covered with what appears to be their feces. They are making mince meat out of my red iochroma.
I washed them off with the water hose. The only "chemicals" I have on hand are pyrethrum, diatomaceous earth, safer's soap and Organicide. Will any of those work? Won't the poo act as a protective coating, keeping chemicals off the insect?
I can't use dipel or Bt, I have monarch cats on the asclepias right next to the iochroma.
I will take a photo if needed.

They sound "attractive" to say the least! Judging from what you have described, I would have gone with the dipel, but since you can't- you don't have orthene? I always use acephate to kill worms. Try the safersoap I quess. Its not going to hurt, but what you need I think is a systemic, although they may move to something else. Sorry I am not much help here. A picture wouldn't hurt. Do you have any hort oil? I am not familiar with Organcide-but anything that gets worms should get these.

Organicide is some kind of ultrafine oil, it smells like fish. We use it on mealy bugs and palm tree scale.
I dont' think I have Orthene, I rarely resort to any insecticides. If the Orthene got into the root system of the asclepias, wouldn't it kill my monarch cats too?

I was thinking of you this am Calalily as you were the only one I knew that was familiar with an injector system. This is a long shot, but I have the model A15-TF-4ML. Its one of the smaller models, I think, but yours may have the same rate adjuster-that thing that you twist to adjust the rate. Anyway, my injector has been acting up-not working at the rate it is supposed to (the EC level should be 1.3 and instead it reads .25 etc-or it will go higher for a period of time-like 2.35)So I was taking it apart and I twisted the rate adjuster all the way open and for some reason it has locked at below 1:500 and I can't twist it back. Its so weird, it doesn't seem like there is anything there to lock. Its Sunday and I can't call anyone, so I was hoping that you might have done this and knew the way to fix it. I have twisted really hard and it won;t move. Any thoughts might help, and if you don;t have a clue what I am talking about, thats ok too! Like I said , its a long shot.

Yes I think it would probably kill them. I would just spray the plant the bugs are eating ( not when its windy) and hope they don't move over to other plants. I would spray the safersoap and/or the Organicide a few days later.

Nevermind Calalily, I got someone to untwist it-I took it to a friends house that we were having dinner at. I'm just glad I got it fixed or we wouldn't be fertilizing for awhile!

Tigerlily, I"m glad you got it fixed. My home computer comes and goes, last night it was acting up. I'm going to have to break down and get a new one.
I hosed the plants off with a hard stream of water and only found one on there yesterday afternoon, so I hosed him off too! I saw two bugs that resembled striped cucumber beetles crawling on the plant, but their larva eats the roots don't they?
I think I'm going to buy orthene.

Thanks Calalily...I think I have a love/hate relationship with this injector, I don't know what I did to it, the gaskets look fine but maybe too loose? Its not sucking at all...I hate these kind of problems!
I don't know the first thing about the cucumber beetles and the larvae eating the roots-if thats the case though, then thats where I would sprinkle some DE on the top of the dirt. I would still try the safersoap or the hort oil you have on them as well-drench the soil. Does orthene work on beetles? The label is on line.

I will have to look up the label. I"m not sure.
I'll ask DH about the injector. He's the one who works on ours.
Well, I called DH(he's in NJ). He said is it "clicking" when it is on? If not, the little pump is messed up. That's about the only thing that can go wrong with them.

It was the o rings lol they looked fine to me, but apparently if they are worn in the least they don't work. Thanks for asking him. For all the time we have been messing with this, and it turns out so simple! At least I learned something about it and got it fixed.
What did you end up doing for treatment? Aren't the monarch cats eating up your asclepias, or did you plant them there for that purpose ( aren't they called the "butterfly plant"?)
I think the orthene would kill the larvae, but not a full grown beetle. The problem with the labels for this product is that they do not cover all the bugs that it kills. It doesn't mention mealybugs, but it is used for that a lot, and is supposed to be very effective, esp when combined with Talstar.

Aaah, yes, the dreaded worn out O ring.
The asclepias is planted for the monarch cats. I plant lots of stuff for the butterfly larva. My neighbor and I compare our plants to see whose is the most eaten up and discuss if we're going to have to move cats. One year we both ran out of asclepias for them to eat.
Spraying the little worms/bugs off with water seems to have worked. They haven't come back.

I found two bagworm cocoon thingies hanging on the iochroma. I wonder if thats what those things were?