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| I went out to check my tomato plants and found two BIG all green horned caterpillars or worms eating me plants.The next day I found another one.They are all green, have a small horn on their heads and have segments. |
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| I see your new to the forum. Glad to have you. In the tomato forum ( not this one your in the tomato pest and disease forum) you can go to FAQ and gets lots of answers.You can also search by using key words in any forum. The info I'm posting came straight out of the FAQ'S. In most cases you will only need to post your problem once give it a day or so for others to read. Here goes Tomato Hornworm - are 3-4" long green caterpillars with diagonal lines on sides, prominent horn on rear end. Eat foliage and may take bites out of green fruit. Tomato hornworms are the larvae of 2 large moths: the Hawkmoth and the Sphinx moth and overwinter in the soil in the pupal stage. Adult moths appear in late spring and lay single, The BT works best on the young ones. Pic what you see and squish.Available at Home Depot and Lowes. Have fun. |
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| Check a guy on this forum called tomato worm 59 Post on his thread he wants the little fellers. I know he would like to hear from you. Go to the tomatoes forum on the second page and look for the post that says (Tomato worms still wanted) Worth |
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- Posted by Tomato_Worm59 OK (My Page) on Sun, Jul 17, 05 at 18:02
| I already saw this and want those big cats! Just e-mail me and I'll tell you how to send them. |
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| Hello, I am trying to identify a 1/2 inch green worm with a very long red horn. Grandson brought it to me from the grape arbor. I took a really nice closeup picture but do not know how to link it to this site. I can email it in jig form if anyone would like to see it and maybe tell us if it's a good guy or a bad guy. Thank you. NanaDiana |
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| I noticed a stripped stem just this afternoon, but it was the only one, and I had a hard time finding the culprit. After much searching, I just found one worm on my plant, but it had little white cocoons on it. I did some research, and the cocoons are from some wasp that will do the caterpillar in once they hatch. I posted a pic of it in the gallery. I love gardening, you learn something new every day! http://photos.gardenweb.com/garden/galleries/2006/08/no_need_for_pesti cides.html |
Here is a link that might be useful: doomed tomato hornworm
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| I had the thrill today to watch some wasps emerging from their cocoons on the back of my Hornworms. Remember: never pick infested Hornworms. They will do no more damage and you want to encourage the local wasp population by allowing the babies to complete their cycle and hunt down more Hornworms. I posted four wasp pictures today to my existing Hornworm gallery: http://www.pbase.com/dougsmit/tomato_hornworm Doug Smith |
Here is a link that might be useful: Best of the bunch
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| Cool pics, dougs! I've just found infested hornworms in the last week, and my kids & I have watched them closely--the neighborhood boys are fascinated! |
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- Posted by bullboxer3 (My Page) on Fri, Aug 24, 07 at 3:40
| Tomato Worm59 I have 2 of these big ones for you. Please contact ASAP me for shipping info. Man, they eat everything on the plants and they DO NOT have any wasp eggs. Thanks!! |
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| Well I'd like to know what you can do to save a plant that has been TOTALLY stripped by a family of these monsters? Is there any hope for my tomatoe? or my pepper plants after an attack? |
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- Posted by bushleague MA (My Page) on Fri, Aug 31, 07 at 19:39
| Tomato horn worms or cutworms? Anywho I noticed some defoliation last week and grabbed one off of the vine. Good stuff here, Thank you! |
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- Posted by elliesland 7 (My Page) on Mon, Sep 17, 07 at 16:18
| I found some this afternoon. (09/17) Wonder if that is why my tomatoes are big but green! It has been horrible weather here. I did find the white larvae on them that will soon be wasps. Maybe I will save them for when the Grandkids come if Tomato_Worm doesn't want them. Very intesting! |
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| My tomato plants are done in by these green caterpillars so I've decided to let them continue their cycle. I do see small wasps around them but so far no eggs. What I want to know is the caterpillars are prolific poopers (my plants are in tubs so the poop lands on my patio) and my cat walks in it. Is their poop dangerous to my cat? |
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- Posted by Catherine rose 33884(Gardengirl4@gmail.com) onMon, May 9, 11 at 12:47
| These things are gross ,ahhhhhh can;t Stand them florida has enough buggs I am not a bug lover they scare me .give me the demon max |
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- Posted by Dream the Wolf(3(wolfeh1998@gmail.com) onTue, Jun 28, 11 at 19:30
| Yes, the are tomato horn worms. They eat the tomato plants, and, if yours is still healthy, I do NOT suggest killing them, since all they are doing is what God sent them here to do. Wasps need them so they can lay their eggs. What you should do, is pick them up and throw them in the woods or wherever, that way the wasps can go to lay their eggs, and you'll be rid of them. If you must kill them, (Heartless!) then go to Lowes. Lowes has bug killer, pretty cheap, and it will not hurt your plants. @oldlady09 |
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- Posted by Dalface TX(dalface1@yahoo.com) onThu, Jun 30, 11 at 10:35
| I found one on a pepper plant and one on a tomato plant which it ate a lot of already. I have removed them. Now why do I want wasps? I really want my tomatoes and my plants do not look good and are not producing much any more. I'm not sure if there is a connection to the worms and lack of production. |
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- Posted by zoner 5(e@gmail.com) onFri, Jul 8, 11 at 17:10
| I saw 1 on my plant that I took off and eat 2 of my tomatoes. I put it in a bowl filled with battery acid. Animal cruelty? maybe, but it should have stuck to eating the leaves instead of the tomatoes! |
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- Posted by hidden(maxmad331@cox.net) onTue, Jul 12, 11 at 11:38
| One night i saw that my red pepper plants were thriving, and then in the morning all the leaves and peppers were gone from the bush. the hornworms ate everything and i don't want to kill, but I want to remove it. And living in the desert makes that hard. |
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| I did not realize these worms could eat my WHOLE tomato plants. Last week I picked 10 of them off and threw them out in the field(because I thought they would turn into pretty moths:/). I thought my plants looked a bit bare from my back window this morning... More of those worms are all over out there, and they ate every last leaf and took bites out of almost all my tomatoes. I am very sad... |
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- Posted by Melissa Potter(mpotter01@swmich.edu) onWed, Aug 3, 11 at 19:18
| Got five of them this morning, only got 1 tomato, but a bunch of leaves they were 3 inches in length, yuck, feed one to my Jack Dempsey fish, saving the rest for treats each day. |
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- Posted by Ryan friend Tomatowyrm(Ryanmartinfriend@gmail.com) onThu, Aug 11, 11 at 16:32
| Man! Why would anyone want these? I found like 30 of them small and large on my plants. I didn't kill them as it is against my beliefs, but I threw them out of my large garden to find other homes. Wormguy if you want them, I will give you dozens as soon as I find more. Just contact me. |
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- Posted by TomatoWorm59 none (My Page) on Tue, Aug 16, 11 at 18:18
| Okay guys, I have been offline since 07/06. Have moved around a bit too, and not so concerned with internet when full time farming, working a factory and later an office job. Now, I'm back on a homestead farm, lots of pepper and tomato plants, wild nightshades of different kinds [weeds I refuse to kill]. Next year, I will have an acre of just tomatoes, along with some assorted peppers and eggplants, as well as 2 acres of squashes and gourds. I'm planting borders of datura and Mirabilis. The latter will be food for my beautiful white-lined sphinx. Viburnum, hydrangea, tons of blueberries and even catalpa [aka catawba] trees. Come on hornworms of many species!!!!! All are welcome on my own little U-pick and insect habitat farm, except you nasty cucumber beetles, squash bugs and potato beetles! Ha! Ryan, this farm I help manage, is literally carved out of 65 acres of pristine, HARDWOOD forest, and also supports some unique fauna, including the southern flying squirrel and big pileated woodpecker. I am blown away by the presence of 7 species of giant silk moths [saturniids], but so far, the only sphingid has been the often maligned Manduca sexta [aka tobacco hornworm or Carolina sphinx]. No, the sexta is no enemy here. I never saw any, until the second week of July. By then, the old tomato plants were played out, rank and gnarled. I had planted 12 nice Celebrity bought from a local grocery store. I cannot let a hornworm finish on any of those, due to their size. Still only about 24". However, I still have a lot of pepper, groundcherry and eastern black nightshade for them to graze on, so Ryan, let's talk. In all, I only found 18 sextas. 3 died [virus/disease] and 2 more ran off [I did not have my sleeves to force them to transition to the groundcherry]. The lucky 13 are in pupa, in moist, sandy dirt in recycled ice cream tubs. |
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| Well...lots of opinions here about solutions to these yucky lookin' eating machines! Sure its cool that the wasp target them and, in time...will kill them! BUT...the fact of the matter is....by the time you wait on the wasp...your tomatoe plants will be history! For peat sake...simply do what all the ladies that I know around here do...put those dudes on the ground...and step on them and crush them into the dirt! At least then...maybe you'll still have your plant and get some fruits..but you'll have the satifaction that you took care of your enemies too, ha! Seems most of you ladies naturally like to crush critters under your feet anyway...so..these dudes should be no exception...stomp away! Lucky for me, my neighbor girls like to come by every two or three days and get some goodies from the garden..and in turn they hunt down every tomato worm they can find..and see who can step on the most...like a competition, ha! teenage gals are a hoot, and a big help too! |
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| Lookie here.....I knew my tomato plants were not happy about something but when i planted a new baby one and got decimated overnite i decided to spring into action. OK so i don;t have a lot of tomatoes left, but it's towards the end of the season and now i have these juicy, fat greedy caterpillars - picture attached! They should start burying themselves soon i think... I HOPE!! Anyone wants them, you can email me. Plus i had cocoons all over the leaves of the plants - what is that all about? I thought these guys like to bury in the dirt bellow the tomato plants...? Hmmm... |
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