About 3 weeks ago, Shain discovered a cutworm in the tomato greenhouse. Actually, he discovered the remains of a tomato plant after it had been "attacked" by a cut worm. Not good. Then he found another, and another. So we started a new routine on the farm. Every morning, noon and night we go out to greenhouse #4 and walked up and down each row in search of a sign that a nasty cutworm is near.
The picture above is what we were looking for. This is a basil plant. It is about 2 to 3 inches tall. The leaves you see on the ground to the left are about 1/2 to 1 inch wide. They have been chewed off by a cutworm. The cutworms will also chew down an entire basil plant or tomato plant.
Once we have identified an area where a cutworm has recently been, we search the area by slowly sifting through the surrounding soil. It's a little like looking for a needle in a haystack. Most of the time we are lucky enough to find the culprit and when we do...he's a goner.
This is a cutworm before Shain takes pleasure in squishing him with his bare fingers. Over the past few weeks these guys have cut down approximately 15 tomato plants and 40 basil plants. Not good.
As an update - Last week, the day it snowed like crazy, we (us farmers and some workshare helpers) wrapped a newspaper strip (aka "cutworm collar") around the base of each and every tomato plant. This should slow those buggers down a bit. The past few days we haven't seen much sign of them. This is good.
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