Quote:
Originally Posted by TigrikT
SVB is a moth that starts flying here around mid June or when chicory is blooming or at 900 DD. The moth lays single eggs anywhere on the plant. The eggs hatch in 8-10 days depending on temps. As soon as they hatch they crawling to the central stem, and start burrowing into it by chewing. If at that point they ingest Spinosad or BT, they die. So the timing is important. It is enough to apply once a week, and reapply after rain.
For a while i was spraying the whole plant, then only the first 5-6 inches of the main stem.
If i see frass (and i check for it daily), i simply use a needle with spinosad or bt on it and do several puncture above and below the frass. The moths are gone in 3-4 weeks. By the end of July the damage should be obvious.
Injection never worked for me as the stem is pretty hard.
So far, so good.
Maybe because my neighbor using sevin on hers....
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I guess that you are right about them chewing into a treated stem. I was thinking of ones already inside of the stem. I have had good luck with injecting a bt solution (Thuricide) into the stems.
According to Penn State the moths appear in mid to late June and will lay eggs all through July and August so the moths are present all summer in my area and planting late is not going to help. The eggs may take 8-10 days to hatch but then the larvae will feed for 4 weeks so the plant does not die for about a month. For this reason I plant a second crop so that it is producing when the first crop wilts and dies.
I also remove any wilted vines to the trash so that any borers inside can not complete their life cycle and pupate into the ground.