WOW. those are some bad*ss worms. . . did you drown them in beer? I hear that goes well with hot food. . .
;-)

bad news to boot, found more than a dozen total so far, all over our pear tomatoes and peppers. :(

went and bought some BT from Elgins, they were laughing at me too, wanted to know if I had found them from their screaming :)

Ugh, sorry to hear it! That BT will do the trick for sure, as long as you hit all of the foliage. I have a massive datura in my back yard and I'm surprised it hasn't been attacked by those hornworms (AKA hovermoth caterpillars or hawkmoth caterpillars), but I'm sure my time is coming, LOL.

Good luck with the BT, let us know how it works out for you.

Take care and thanks for the fun post,
Grant

They've been munching my datura, but I don't mind. I'm sure I sound like a nut.. LOL! But the moth is very important for night time polinating of our desert plants, espicially the Saguahro cactus.

I usually plant a few datura or tomatos off to the side of the yard and just move the cats to them.

JoJo

JoJo, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who re-distributes those caterpillars, LOL. I do move them from heavily infested plants to those that are less so. Seems better for the plants, the caterpillars, and the appearance of my garden. I just let them be since I only grow tomatoes early in the season before there are many of the hornworms around. By summer my tomatoes are toast so I let them eat all the datura they want, though I do move them around, LOL. I do love the moths in the evenings.

Take care all,
Grant

Grant, JoJo;

So just moving these hornworms to other plants will do no harm? I got to thinking after spraying the BT, that after counting there really wasn't an "infestation". They ate one habanero to sticks, but not much on the maters and other peppers.

Hi Mangled and all,

I relocate the tomato hornworm/hovermoth caterpillars all the time and they don't mind at all, as long as I place them on a solanum (tomato relative). They'll happily gobble foliage from tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, daturas (their favorite), various tobacco/Nicotiana, and nightshades. I usually just snip off the branch/leaf they're currently eating and move it to a new plant. I try to match the type of plant but hey, beggars can't be choosers, LOL.

Let us know how things go.
Take care,
Grant

So grant, could we plant some sacrificial datura? Which varieties?

Mangled, you could definitely plant some sacrificial datura. I grow several types but the biggest growing, happiest, and most floriferous for me is Datura meteloides which gets enormous if you let it and is perennial in the warm winter parts of AZ. Below is a pic I recently took of one of several of mine with those great hand-sized scented white blooms (also adding the link as well).

If you need seeds, let me know. They're very easy though their germination schedule is random. Happy to share some seeds though if you're looking--let me know. I don't know if planting them would attract MORE caterpillars than you'd already get, but if nothing else, they get big and theyr'e a good place to let the caterpillars do their thing.

Datura meteloides

{{gwi:407110}}

Take care and keep us posted,
Grant who noticed several small cute hornworm caterpillars on the daturas this week.

Here is a link that might be useful: Datura blooms and foliage in my garden

Hey grant, thanks for all the info, how large is "enormous"?

I check on my garden plants nearly every day. If one does that even a few caters will not do too much damage before you remove them.

My largest datura gets about ten feet by six or seven feet wide (and maybe four feet tall) if I leave it unpruned. You can hack them back pretty easily though and they'll be fine (I always check the undersides of leaves for caterpillars to make sure I don't toss them away).

Any solanum will be fine too, by the way. I see the "cats" on tree tobacco, regular flowering tobacco, desert nightshade etc., but datura at least gives the big easy blooms at night.

Good luck!
Take care,
Grant