Hornworm Attack

Flying Turtle · Aug 31, 2010

Noticed the leaves of a couple tomato plants had begun to disappear. Looked a bit closer today and found a pest I hadn't encountered before in many years of backyard farming. It's the Hornworm.

The little sacs on its side are parasitic wasp larvae that will eventually kill it, if I don't first.

Geoff

Zeruel · Aug 31, 2010

oo:.....:green:.....:sick2:..... :barf:

andyw513 · Aug 31, 2010

I'll trade you some Japanese beetles for them :poke:

StarHalo · Aug 31, 2010

These are very common in the midwest; put a bird feeder low to the ground near your tomatoes, they'll gladly eat the worms too. Sprinkle cornmeal around your plants, the worms love it and it causes them to swell lethally. Ladybugs enjoy attacking worms, you can buy eggs online, or if you don't mind the wasps, plant some spearmint near your plants, which attracts all the most violent stinging insects.

Illum · Aug 31, 2010

StarHalo said:
Sprinkle cornmeal around your plants, the worms love it and it causes them to swell lethally.

this just reminded me so much of "why you should not feed pigeons too much bread" :faint:

bshanahan14rulz · Aug 31, 2010

Flying Turtle;3509793The little sacs on its side are parasitic wasp larvae that will eventually kill it said:
I saw a fuzzy capilitter with a few of these on it. I thought they were tufts of fuzz until I accidentally touched one. So those are wasp larvae? Gross!

bitslammer · Aug 31, 2010

Had quite a few here too. Left the ones with wasp eggs alone as they'll keep the others under control. These guys can really show down on a plant!

tinker gnome · Aug 31, 2010

"Wisdom starts by calling things with their proper names"

It may be known as "tomato hornworm" by gardeners. Biologists call it the larva (caterpillar) of Manduca sexta, the 'tobacco hawk-moth' or 'Carolina sphinx'. The anal horn is specific for most caterpillars of hawk-moths (Family Sphingidae).

Both tomatoes and tobbaco are members of the nightshade family (Solanaceae), the caterpillars feed on their leaves and become therefore poisonous to most enemies, excluding parasitic wasps :green:

Best regards,

Wolfgang

Paladin · Aug 31, 2010

When I see damaged leaves I look closely on the ground around the plant. Small hex shaped droppings will be found right below a feeding worm. Examining the stems above the droppings often leads to finding the worm, which is then dispatched.

Paladin

jzmtl · Sep 1, 2010

Ah the fun of back yard gardening. I finally got slugs under control more or less this year, but the friggin jap beatle comes in bucket load, then there's the white cabbage butterfly laying eggs all over...

StarHalo · Sep 1, 2010

jzmtl said:
Ah the fun of back yard gardening. I finally got slugs under control more or less this year, but the friggin jap beatle comes in bucket load, then there's the white cabbage butterfly laying eggs all over...

Slugs are another easy one; get some of the half-height or dip-serve Solo cups and bury them all around your plants in the ground so their tops are flush with the surface, then fill them to the top with beer. Wrap your slug-edible plants around their base with aluminum foil.

Haven't dealt with the other two.

HarryN · Sep 1, 2010

Any suggestions for invasive argentine ants?

1) Poison ant baits - they used to work, but they reformulated them and the ants don't eat it anymore.

2) Tide liquid laundry soap - I use it mostly as a barrier. I suspect that the odor interferes with communication, so they tend to stay away from a line.

3) Liquid Bleach - Useful on the nests, but only locally, and then they rebuild.

4) Conventional ant poisons - I used to use them, but I really don't want to kill off everything.

Open to ideas and suggestions.

tiktok 22 · Sep 1, 2010

HarryN said:
Any suggestions for invasive argentine ants?

1) Poison ant baits - they used to work, but they reformulated them and the ants don't eat it anymore.

2) Tide liquid laundry soap - I use it mostly as a barrier. I suspect that the odor interferes with communication, so they tend to stay away from a line.

3) Liquid Bleach - Useful on the nests, but only locally, and then they rebuild.

4) Conventional ant poisons - I used to use them, but I really don't want to kill off everything.

Open to ideas and suggestions.

Mix sodium tetraborate (20 mule team borax) with ranch dressing and set it out around the ants. They like vegetable based foods. 20 mule team borax can be found in the laundry section of your local wal-mart. I've used this a number of times. They take the food back to the nest and feed the queen. Dead queen = dead ants.

Illum · Sep 1, 2010

StarHalo said:
Slugs are another easy one; get some of the half-height or dip-serve Solo cups and bury them all around your plants in the ground so their tops are flush with the surface, then fill them to the top with beer. Wrap your slug-edible plants around their base with aluminum foil.

Haven't dealt with the other two.

care to explain the concept between beer and foil?

HarryN said:
Any suggestions for invasive argentine ants?

Assuming these ants are in the yard...
if you don't mind digging holes hot water + dish detergent goes well. Pour too much hot water and your grass will give you "the look" for a couple weeks

PSEUDOSENTIENT · Sep 1, 2010

This happened to a group of tomato plants I had years ago.

If you dont look closely, the worms can blend in with the foliage. I didnt see them... at first. What I did see was little green poops in the dirt in the plant pot that reminded me of a green version of "Honeycombs" cereal.

I found these things for a few days, curious where they could be coming from.

A couple days later I went out back to check on the plants again... all the leaves were gone. They were just sticks in pots. Then I noticed a few leaves left. On further inspection they were gigantic green grub looking things. I never knew what they were called until I saw your post.

I was so angry that I collected them all and put them down the food disposal in the sink, lest they eat anything else in the garden.

Tomatos RIP.

StarHalo · Sep 1, 2010

HarryN said:
Any suggestions for invasive argentine ants?

All the experienced extermination folk will tell you that liquid borax is the one true solution to killing ants. The only bait that still uses straight liquid borax is Terro; their "outdoor" baits are quite large and are specifically designed to take out large numbers of ants over a long period of time. The first time I tried one of these on an anthill I'd found in my yard, I set it out around noontime; I checked on it five minutes later and ants were already streaming in and out of it by the hundreds - borax has a scent which actively draws ants, you don't have to wait for them to stumble upon it. I checked on it again that evening, and the anthill was vacant, no movement. I couldn't find an ant anywhere in the yard. The bait exterminated the entire nest in under six hours.

Highly recommended even if you have to order it online, though some Lowe's carry it in-store.

Illum said:
care to explain the concept between beer and foil?

Slugs love beer and are drawn to it, and it kills them. If you check your ground-cups after a few days, you'll find little lumps of slime around the cup, these were previously slugs..

And slugs avoid tinfoil, probably just due to the tiny static shock they get from being a wet grounded object touching metal. A wrap of foil a few inches tall around the stem of a plant is sufficient to keep most crawling things away.

fyrstormer · Sep 1, 2010

One-word solution: blowtorch. They won't come back.

In other news, I've discovered that pine-sawdust used as kitty litter makes fantastic fertilizer for tomatoes, and it also scares away all the animals that might try to eat them.

Lite_me · Sep 1, 2010

StarHalo said:
All the experienced extermination folk will tell you that liquid borax is the one true solution to killing ants. The only bait that still uses straight liquid borax is Terro;

Highly recommended even if you have to order it online, though some Lowe's carry it in-store.

I get mine at WalMart. The stuff works great! I mostly use the squeeze bottle. The closer you can dispense it to the nest the better.

jzmtl · Sep 2, 2010

StarHalo said:
Slugs love beer and are drawn to it, and it kills them. If you check your ground-cups after a few days, you'll find little lumps of slime around the cup, these were previously slugs..

And slugs avoid tinfoil, probably just due to the tiny static shock they get from being a wet grounded object touching metal. A wrap of foil a few inches tall around the stem of a plant is sufficient to keep most crawling things away.

I tried that, kills a few but more moves in from shady grassy areas. Now I'm doing mass eradication with ammonia spray, which seems to work quite well.

Can't use tin foil thou, most of the plants they attack doesn't really have a stem I can wrap.

Oh yeah, I forgot the spider mites in my list. :duh2:

Hornworm Attack

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