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aclum · April 10, 2015

Hi again,

Ella, I think what you are seeing is just part of the tomato plant (that might happen to look like a caterpillar). But while I haven't found any creatures on the plants, I do now strongly suspect caterpillars (possibly in addition to a virus disease)- The gnawed look on some of the leaf stems does look a lot like cutworm damage that you might see on stems at ground level. And I think the holes in the leaves could be caterpillar damage. I'll check the plants out more closely tomorrow and if I can't see any evidence of insects like whiteflies, etc., I might go ahead and apply some Safer Caterpillar Killer I found today.

Unless I find some sort of insect infestation, I'll hold off on the Safer Insect Killing Soap (or DE) for now and just put up the sticky traps. Thinking about putting out pans of stale beer to trap slugs and snails, but a little unsure of that as a neighborhood cat has decided to become our "garden cat" and I worry about it drinking the beer and getting sick!

I won't pull the plants until I know for sure what's going on. Hopefully they'll all pull through. I'd like to save them esp. as they're grafts that I now have controls for in the newly planted ungrafted back-ups. I'm just sorry that I suckered them all a few days ago

.

Thanks again for the input! I'll let you know how things progress.

Anne

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April 10, 2015	#13
aclum Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Merced, CA Posts: 832	Hi again, Ella, I think what you are seeing is just part of the tomato plant (that might happen to look like a caterpillar). But while I haven't found any creatures on the plants, I do now strongly suspect caterpillars (possibly in addition to a virus disease)- The gnawed look on some of the leaf stems does look a lot like cutworm damage that you might see on stems at ground level. And I think the holes in the leaves could be caterpillar damage. I'll check the plants out more closely tomorrow and if I can't see any evidence of insects like whiteflies, etc., I might go ahead and apply some Safer Caterpillar Killer I found today. Unless I find some sort of insect infestation, I'll hold off on the Safer Insect Killing Soap (or DE) for now and just put up the sticky traps. Thinking about putting out pans of stale beer to trap slugs and snails, but a little unsure of that as a neighborhood cat has decided to become our "garden cat" and I worry about it drinking the beer and getting sick! I won't pull the plants until I know for sure what's going on. Hopefully they'll all pull through. I'd like to save them esp. as they're grafts that I now have controls for in the newly planted ungrafted back-ups. I'm just sorry that I suckered them all a few days ago . Thanks again for the input! I'll let you know how things progress. Anne .