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Help! What kills hornworms...

16 years ago

other than a smack with a shovel (or brick, or shoe - you get the idea)? I thought I had escaped this year, but the icky, gross, green, fat, nasty, multi-legged, defoliators of tomatoes have arrived. I picked off FIVE last night (using kitchen tongs - ick!) from my three tomato plants and I'm sure there are more. Is there a poison that won't kill everything else? I don't like the idea of poison...but I do like the idea of leaves and tomatoes on my tomato plants!

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Comments (9)

calliope
16 years ago
Oh gosh, I must've been right then. It was frass? I just pick them off when I find them. Kitchen tongs? LOL. They do turn into rather pretty moths.
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rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
16 years ago
alys...I'm afraid that you've discovered the most effective and efficient method of getting rid of them. Well, not the tongs, necessarily, lol! Do a 'search and destroy' mission every evening and you'll get rid of them.
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Hornworms supposedly pupate in the soil, so that rules out your candidate as a hornworm. http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/field/hornworm.htm I have been growing tomatoes in Southern California for some 15 years now, and hornworms are infrequent but always shocking uninvited guests... found typically in the late season. In spring, I find cabbage loopers, which are far more numerous but smaller and not capable of defoliating a plant as quickly as hornworms. I have used a permeathrin-based insecticide to knock out cabbage loopers when they are too numerous to hand-erradicate. Hornworms demand only an exercise in visual perception and extrication; chemicals are not necessary. They are extremely well-camouflaged and tend to line up on plant stems. Cabbage loopers do their dirty deeds on the undersides of leaves. Watch for black poops as they betrays the presence of these masters of camouflage. Cabbage loopers "get around" on the plant rather deftly, so they will likely have moved or disappeared by the time you react to a poop discovery.
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lilion
Original Author
16 years ago
Ick! I got SEVEN more last night off my three poor toms! Some were huge, some were tiny. Where are those parasitic wasps when you need them? Yep, tongs are a must. I don't think I could make myself touch one if I were wearing welding gloves! My revulsion with bugs is directly proportionate to the size and number of legs.

Calliope I used to love the little humming-bird like moths, until I found what they come from.

Thanks!
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laceyvail 6A, WV
16 years ago
If you have an organic garden, the parasitic wasps will take care of them for you. I don't even pay attention to them anymore.
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lilion
Original Author
16 years ago
Killed NINE more last night! They've found my two container tomatoes too...I've picked them off anywhere from 1 inch to 4 inches long. I'm needing new tongs now - I don't think I can use them in the kitchen now they've had worm guts on them.

Nary a wasp to be seen - not one of those litte creepers had larva on them either. >:-(

And my garden is organic - not a pesticide, herbacide or any other cide to be seen - except maybe wormacide!
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User
16 years ago
A squish with the shoe kills them but if you have a grape vine that you are not using pick off and move to the grapevine. Although you may have more worms next year you will also see moths that look like hummingbirds. These are the larva of that family.
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Kimmsr
16 years ago
The tomato hornworms do not become the Hummingbird Moth. While the Hummingbird Moth is on of the 100 or so Sphinx Moths the larva of these moths do not eat tomatoes or any other nightshade plant. The Carolin Sphinx or the Five-Spotted Hawkmoth are the parents of the tomato/tobacco hornworm, so eliminate these hornworms with no regrets.
If you spray early enough in the life of one of these wee buggers with Bacillus thuringiensis - Kurstaki you can control them that way, but that must be used in the first 3 weeks or sooner since once they get fairly well grown the spores will not infect them.
Spraying broad spectrum, organophhosphate pesticides around will control these buggers but will also kill off any beneficials around that could help you control the hornworms. Sevin, carbaryl, is a broad spectrum organophosphate poison that also is linked to many health problems in humans, it begins by attacking your liver although the affects of this do not appear for many years.
Cutting hornworms in half, stomping on them, feeding them to the birds are all good methods of control without poisoning my planet even more.
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lilion
Original Author
16 years ago
Personally, I don't care if they turn into the prettiest moths in the whole world. If they eat my tomatoes they must DIE!

On the up side, I only found one since my last mass worm-icide, so I think I may have gotten them!

Thank you all for your input.
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HU-294093513
3 years ago
Use a black light at night and they will show up really easy even the small ones...pick and stomp them dead or feed to chickens if you have some.
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