cmonkey :I've thought the same thing too, and remember trying to figure out what they mean by "wild cucurbits". tigrikt - Thanks for posting that article. I love reading those old articles and seeing what people did a long time ago. I had to google "Cymlings" as I had no idea what he was talking about... they are another name for "Pattypan"... interesting. I always wonder what the Native americans did, when they grew pumpkins. I bet they probably had some good tricks they used. Its interesting how the articles names these different pesticides they recommend. Looking them up, they are all banned now for home use for being too toxic. Its a wonder our ancestors didn't all die of cancer and poisoning with all these chemicals they used! I like the idea of an "ovicide". I wonder if we have anything now in modern times would not be very toxic but could do the same thing. Would be a lot easier to just spray the vines than hand pick the eggs.

That may well be possible although I have not seen anything to indicate it does happen. Numerous other larva do move from plant to plant before pupating as food becomes less plentiful.

No, I have never tried traps. Reason being who can predict they will go straight for the big yellow trap first before landing on a leaf and depositing a few evil babies? I just don't trust them. As for BT, that stuff is AMAZING on hornworms! I sprayed my tomato plants last year after finding one, and within a few days you can spot those nasty buggers dead because they starve and turn brown. I wouldn't trust that for SVB though either because SVB bore INTO the stem or branch, and eat the insides of the plants, not the outsides like hornworms. I know that some people inject it into the plant. I never tried that. We started constructing our row cover thing yesterday. I also filled up my sprayers with neem and BT. Ready for the bug war.

Hi Actionclaw, In my years of battling SVB, here are some of my observations: * Since I have read they lay eggs and start at the base, I usually heavily mulch my base so they cant get to it. Before I mulch the base, I inspects carefully for eggs and remove them. They are tricky and lay eggs under the leaf stems too, so checking with a small mirror helps here. But in my experience if they really lay eggs anywhere. I have seen eggs on top of leaves, on the tips of vines, on flower stalks, and under vines too. You have to check the vine very carefully. On pumpkins I will check vines and them bury the vines are they grow, with dirt. * I have found no pattern to which direction they bore, But I think most seem to be going towards the base. * On bush type summer squash I will inject as preventative, and I have found that pretty effective. I'm in Texas and we pretty much have SVB active from May to Sept, and I have certainly been able to extend the life of the bush type squashes by injecting. Vining types such as spaghetti squash, pumpkins, etc, for these I bury the vines as they grow. BT injections are just not practical because the vines are so long, and there are so many growing vine tips that fork out of the plant. But since the plants grow fast and root along the vines readily, even if the base gets taken out the plant will still live and produce. Here's my banana squash harvest! Another key here was getting an early start, so that the plants were big and strong once the SVB started.