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Sun, May 19, 13 at 17:07
| Hi everyone, First post here! I just started gardening and am already running into issues with pests. I seem to have worms or caterpillars eating my unripe tomatoes. Here are pictures of the tomatoes that were eaten and the work/caterpillar that did the damage: I live in Houston, TX if it helps identify the pest. Do any of you have any ideas what this pest is and how to kill them? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Typo in the subject. I meant Worm not Work |
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| Looks like tomato fruitworm or cutworm. If you look closely you may be able to see lacey holes around the leaf edges and find them and squish them sooner before they get bigger and eat the maters. You can also try bti (bacillus thuringiensis Israelensis) as a larvacide to kill them in the soil before they mature as they are a moth larvae. |
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| I have never seen any caterpillar to eat tomato or potato leaves. ..they love parsley..hehe |
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| I use a BT spray to prevent them but I usually start spraying the leaves and fruit once a week as soon as the plants start setting fruit. The only problem is that the worms have to ingest the BT so they still might bite your tomatoes before they die--I haven't tried using the BT after they are already infested with worms so I'm not sure how well it would work. |
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