Apparently 2 tobacco horn worms ate 2 of my plants in 24 hours (stripped every leaf, leaving sticks with peppers hanging).... thank God they werent my most prized plants.... now I need to check every plant for them... BEWARE
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Holy Hell.... wtf....
- Thread starter Noah Yates
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i took the scissors to them XD
One observation i made is that the plants they took were smaller plants that were shaded by the larger plants... so in a way thye helped to thin out plants which were being over-powered. Still... they had to go... if I had gone up to the garden to discover either of my ButchTt twins or any of my Reapers or Primos had been desectrated... I WOULD HAVE DIED
One observation i made is that the plants they took were smaller plants that were shaded by the larger plants... so in a way thye helped to thin out plants which were being over-powered. Still... they had to go... if I had gone up to the garden to discover either of my ButchTt twins or any of my Reapers or Primos had been desectrated... I WOULD HAVE DIED
Hate 'em. But they look so cool...
It happened virtually over-night... and when I caught them this afternoon... they were devouring the last little part of the 1 leaf remaining at a steady rate right before my eyes..... munching my precious plants on one end and pooping the lovely green that was once my beloved pepper plant on the other end :-\ they are highly effective, efficient, plant-kiling machines
Ive had some kind of wasp hanging around my plants, but ive been noticing an increase in hornworms on my tomatoes since then.... and not sure if its the wasp or something else, but a lot of them seem to start yellowing and turning white and drying up or they just fall from the olant and get stuck in spider webs.... between everything and me picking some of them off, I havent seen any over half an inch....
In the past I had one destroy about 60% of my favorite plant in less than 12 hours. They have voracious appetites. I'm pretty good at finding them now and they don't usually have time to do too much damage but left unchecked they'll eat everything down to the stem. (Well, tomatoes and peppers and tobacco at least) I think I killed about 10 this year which isn't too bad but we'll get a second wave in August usually so keep your eyes open in the fall.
The chickens and ducks love them.
The chickens and ducks love them.
rhm3769 - I'd recommend you start a new thread and post pics.
There is a certain kind of wasp that is a natural enemy to the hornworm - it lays white eggs on the bodies of the hornworms, and when those eggs hatch, the baby wasps devour the worms. Can't say if you have that kind of wasp or not, but definitely the wasps are not bringing hornworms with them. But yes, do whatever you can to eliminate the hornworms before they eliminate your plants!
There is a certain kind of wasp that is a natural enemy to the hornworm - it lays white eggs on the bodies of the hornworms, and when those eggs hatch, the baby wasps devour the worms. Can't say if you have that kind of wasp or not, but definitely the wasps are not bringing hornworms with them. But yes, do whatever you can to eliminate the hornworms before they eliminate your plants!
Very close, they actually lay the eggs just under the skin. They then eat the hornworm from the inside out as they work to come through the skin.geeme said:
Braconid Wasp
rhm3769 said:
From the reading I did... hornworms are preyed upon by wasps... so it could very well be that the wasp population is a result of the hornworms... (but you didnt notice the worms until after the wasps?!) This is a good thing... because the horn worms will decrease in population as the wasps inrease in number..
There is a thread with the picture of the wasp.... flying insect id. ... I had hornworms weeks before I saw the wasp, but since the wasp, ibe been finding more.... maybe its the increase in worms that attracted the wasp? It looks more like the dyjng and dead worms are from heat and sun or theres something on tge keaves poisoning them.... they're nowhere near full grown and I havent seen anything like the pictures with the wasp eggs....
