Problems Already! Stem and Leaves

[clkeiper]

Originally Posted by ddsack

Anne, there are quite a few species of cutworms. I didn't know about climbing cutworms until I had my first infestation a couple of years ago. The moths must have come through and laid eggs in my potted tomatoes. Something was eating my potted tomato leaves all lacy and I could never find them until they grew bigger. They started out tiny, like cabbage caterpillers, but were brownish grey. Look to see if there is dark greenish caterpiller poop among your leaves. These cutworms look almost identical to the cut worms that stay in the ground and chew off young seedling at ground level. If any of your plants are in pots, try flooding the pot with some water, and often the cutworms will float up above the soil, especially if you riffle the top of the soil a bit.

Those sound like the tomato fruitworm. Not much bigger than the webworm you find hanging in tree. I had my first run in with them last year in the greenhouse, but they were not restricted to the tomatoes. I had a few thistles growing in the corner and they were infesting them, too.

[ddsack]

They were awful! They also got into my ground planted tomatoes, but not nearly as badly as the potted ones, I suppose they didn't bother trying to get up the plastic sides of the pots in their nightly rounds. They did bore into the fruit as well, as it developed and as they grew larger. I decided the moths must have arrived on some southern breeze, because I'd never seen them before in 20 some years, and last year was fairly clear as well, I may have found just a couple. Yuck!

[Heritage]

Hi Anne,

Your plants are getting big!

The damage is either worms, earwigs, or snails/slugs, it is not a virus

With worms you should be able to find droppings below the affected leaves. The same with earwigs, except earwig droppings are much smaller (like sand or pepper). Usually, with snails/slugs you will see some shiny areas on leaves (look like they've been "slimed").

The damage is similar with all three pests. Worm and snail damage look the most similar and earwig damage looks more like a "shredding" as compared to the nice clean damage of snails and worms.

Earwigs and snails do their damage at night, worms work 24/7.

My best guess is earwigs.

Good luck,
Steve

[aclum]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the information. I'm very relieved to know that it's not a virus.

I'll put out some snail and slug bait right after I log off. I haven't seen any evidence of droppings or slime, but I did find a lot of little green worms as well as a more cutworm-like worm in a nearby bed with mixed Asian greens. I sprayed the tomatoes with the Safer Caterpillar Killer (Dipel) yesterday. I'll have to looik up what to do about the earwigs. No new damage on any of the plants today.

Yes, the plants are growing pretty fast now and most of the plants from my first group of transplants have blossoms - but no baby tomatoes yet. I'll post a photo of things soon.

BTW, I had logged into Tomatoville earlier and saw that there was a post from you. I was thinking "Oh Boy, Steve will have my answer" - and then I lost the internet connection ! Very frustrating! It's taken until just now for Comcast to do some rewiring and get things up and running again. The waiting was frustrating, but at least my computer is running much faster now.

I'm off to put out some snail and slug bait. Thanks again for your help!

Anne

[b54red]

I think I would use a little Sevin dust or spray. The plants are young and so fruit won't be affected and you don't know what it is but it does appear to be insect damage. If you do use Sevin apply it near sundown so as to lessen the chance of harming bees.

Every year I have to use Sevin at least once on my tomatoes for one chewing pest or another that seem immune to BT.

Bill

[Heritage]

Anne,

I have to disagree with Bill about using Sevin, especially knowing your past history with spider mites. Mites exposed to carbaryl (Sevin) in the laboratory have been shown to reproduce faster than untreated populations. Plus you would kill off any beneficials you have now. I think you would be creating new problems if you spray/dust Sevin when it isn't necessary.

Earwigs are ugly but actually are very fragile and they don't reproduce fast enough to be a huge problem, especially in our dry climate. If you don't notice any new damage then you probably don't have that many earwigs. You can roll up a newspaper and place it at the base of the plant to check the earwig population. Earwigs will hide in the folds of the newspaper during the day and you can check to see if any are hiding. (and dump them in a bucket of water). Earwigs are interesting insects - they protect their young and love to eat aphids. Unfortunately, they also eat tomato leaves.

It's great to see you are keeping a diary again this year. I always learn something from your posts.

Steve

[b54red]

Steve I would never suggest using Sevin for spider mites but that doesn't seem to be the problem. I just know it is my last resort for chewing insects that more natural products don't slow down. I only use it when nothing else helps and the situation is getting critical. If it is slugs then the slug bait might help. I've already used most of a box trying to keep the slimy things out of my lettuce and cabbage to no avail.

Bill

[aclum]

Hi Bill and Steve,

Thanks for the info - pro and con - on Sevin. I think that, for me (at least for now), the cons of using the Sevin outweigh the pros. I've got one bed with some very small plants that seem to have some earwig damage, but I'm just going to wait and see if the plants can "outgrow" the damage. If they can't, I do have some back-up plants available. There's no new damage to any of the plants in the main tomato beds where I had the original problems (which I now suspect were caused chiefly by caterpillars or worms with just possible minor earwig damage on the leaves).

Anyway, I think I'm OK with things for now. Thanks to everyone who responded to my original post!

Inspecting the garden today I noticed my first little green tomatoes on a Santa Clara Canner, Bush Early Girl, and Yorkbec.

Thanks for the compliments on my garden "diary" and posts, Steve. I hope to get some new photos posted soon .

Anne
..

[peebee]

Just a quick comment on your not having any "backups"--with your grafting expertise Anne, propagating via cuttings should be a snap. That's what I do when disaster strikes and I only have one variety of a plant I want to save. It's certainly quicker than growing by seed again, as the cutting will be fairly large. Loved Gary OSena.
Yes, your leaf damage looks entirely worm/bug-related to me too, not a virus at all. I usually find the culprit, those huge tomato worms, even after I do not find poop anywhere. Sometimes gently shaking the branches will let me see them better if they haven't fallen off by then.
Good luck to your crop this year, let's hope our mutual spider mites do not return!

[Heritage]

Originally Posted by b54red

Steve I would never suggest using Sevin for spider mites but that doesn't seem to be the problem. I just know it is my last resort for chewing insects that more natural products don't slow down. I only use it when nothing else helps and the situation is getting critical. If it is slugs then the slug bait might help. I've already used most of a box trying to keep the slimy things out of my lettuce and cabbage to no avail.

Bill

Bill,

I'm not being critical of your use of carbaryl, we all do what is necessary for our specific growing conditions. And, as you say, Sevin is a "last resort" solution.

I'm sure Anne will be battling spider mites again this year and suspect there is already a small population trying to get a foothold. Sevin will cause mites to reproduce more rapidly and it also kills any beneficials that are now feeding on the mites. If Anne applies Sevin now, her battle with mites will be made even more difficult. Trust me, I have made just about every mistake possible with pesticides.

As an added bonus, Sevin is probably carcinogenic. Here is a great site to check for the detailed info of any pesticide:
Carbaryl (Sevin) info at PAN

Steve

[aclum]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for elaborating on the Sevin use - esp. as it regards spider mites. I'm not thrilled to learn that I probably already have spider mites trying to gain a foothold in the garden , but I guess it sort of "comes with the territory." Following Bill's mention of Sevin and your comments, I did a little reading up on things and re-read this excellent link re: spider mites from UCD's IPM series:

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7405.html

Besides cautioning against the use of certain insecticide/pesticides, it mentions dry, dusty conditions favoring the spider mites. I didn't really pay much attention to that last year (had enough other things to worry about in the garden at the time). As you no doubt recall, I just have dirt paths between my raised beds, which probably didn't help with the dust and spider mite situation. Hoping to make navigating the garden in my wheelchair easier after rains ('as-if"), this past winter, I began covering some of the paths with cardboard and later added a medium-heavy landscape (underlayment) fabric on the paths. (I'll attach a photo so you can see what I'm talking about). I wasn't thinking about the spider mites at the time, but I think maybe the covered paths combined with the perforated silver mulch covering the bare dirt in the beds MIGHT (as opposed to "mite" ) help in keeping the spider mite problems somewhat under control (combined with other measures mentioned in the UCD/IPM article).

That's about all I have to say about mites for the moment, but I'm sure the subject will come up again before too long !

At least for now, the plants are coming along without any new problems.

BTW, so far the landscape fabric is holding up well with the wheelchair use. Time will tell how it REALLY holds up and if the dark color has any major negative effect on the plants as the season progresses.....

Anne

[efisakov]

Hi, Anne,
your garden looks great. Wish you spiderless year!

[Delerium]

Agree with ^^^ efisakov your tomato garden looks superb. I wish i was that organized.

[greyghost]

Really nice garden beds, Anne. Your plants look really healthy. Darlene

[aclum]

Hi Ella, Delerium, and Darlene,

Thanks for the nice comments. I have to (immodestly) agree that things are looking fairly good at the moment. The garden's at that that delightful - and often all too brief - spring stage where everything's beginning to take off and is more or less under control . I doubt that it'll stay this nice for long !

I'll try and get some better photos of the plants soon and post them in my 2015 garden plan thread.

Anne