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smoker · Joined: 18 May 2009 Posts: 5

My plants are being eaten by what I suppose is a caterpillar. The leaves are being devoured but the veins are not (the caterpillars must be fussy).
I've looked all over the plants and around the area, but I cannot find the culprits. Are the plants being eaten by nocturnal caterpillars?
Any guesses? Any suggestions?

bob_kemp · Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 4:42 am Post subject: devoured plants

Hi --

There are worms that bury themselves in the ground in the day and come up at night. You should consider examining the plants at night with a flashlight to catch those. You can also take a drinking straw and split it long-ways and put that around the stem so they can't crawl up.

There is a product sold at Lowes or Home Depot which is organic control for worms -- Caterpiller Killer. Comes in a small green bottle.

It could also be grasshoppers and I have no help for that except to keep the grass mowed around the plants!

Hope that helps,

Bob

smoker · Joined: 18 May 2009 Posts: 5

Thanks Bob...
I went out at night with a flashlight - hoping my neighbors didn't notice and erroneously think a B&E was underway.
After a few minutes of poking around, I found the culprit - big, fat snails. I had found some snails on some other plants in the garden, but these ones on the tobacco seemed more... more ....cool. Perhaps it was the tobacco.
I picked off the snails I could find, but to catch the ones I missed, I placed some 1/4 full beer bottles on their sides around the plants. I have read that snails like beer and will drown themselves in it. My tobacco garden now looks like a Garden of Sin. Kind of funny.
My snails lived hard and will die happy.

Guy · Joined: 12 Jul 2009 Posts: 60 Location: NC

Not sure what state you are in or what stage of growth your plants are in but I had a similar problem and couldn't find the culprits. I googled Tobacco Pests and got a list but none were evident. I went out at night. No help.
Then one night I found them. Not listed as pests for tobacco but there they were......earwigs!
Might not be your problem but certainly was mine. I used sevin dust but too problematic to use effectively. Pest control man came by and I mentioned earwigs and he gave me some white liquid ..5 oz..told me to mix it 1 oz to a gallon. I didn't spray my plants but instead sprayed all the surface area around my plants. Really helped. I am sorry I don't know the name of the product. But earwigs can destroy young plants overnight or take huge bites out of them. This is probably too late to be of help as by now your plants are much larger. Seems earwigs like young plants.

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