The Dastardly Pickleworm

[GoDawgs]

Dang, I had almost thought we had been passed by this year. Last year the first ones appeared June 7. This morning I picked the first cuke and first yellow squash that had pickleworm damage. There were two inside the squash but five in the cuke! It is safe to say none will reach maturity.

[brownrexx]

Finally! This is an insect that we do not have in PA.

[worth1]

Finally! This is an insect that we do not have in PA.

I have never seen one here.

As for transplanting cucumbers.
I find it best to let the plants get a little root bound.
The use the container it is in to make the hole shape.
Then set the plant in the hole.
You don't disturb the roots this way.

[GoDawgs]

Finally! This is an insect that we do not have in PA.

It's all Florida's fault! That's where they come from.

And don't feel too smug:

Although it regularly takes one or two months for the dispersing pickleworms to move north from Florida to the Carolinas, in some years they reach locations as far north as Michigan and Connecticut.

http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/veg/pickleworm.htm

We never had any pickleworms until a couple years ago. Just lucky, I guess. At least they don't overwinter here. I might have to start covering the squash plants at night and opening them in the morning. Can't do anything about the cuke as it's on a trellis. And from another source whose addy I can't find right now, survival of all stages of the pickleworm declines at temperatures above 85 degrees F. Well, we certainly qualify here and maybe why they're late. But then again, right now it's the hottest it's been so far! Go figure. It is what it is.

[Ginger2778]

20200401_080521.jpg

We have them bad here. They are the larvae of a nocturnal moth. I cover my cukes with tulle, clothespin attatched, every evening. Then I uncover during the day to keep powdery mildew at bay, and to allow them grow space.(for a cucumber to grow straight it needs to hang straight down.) I get the tulle at Jo-Ann Fabrics, anout 1.50 per 5' wide yard. I get 10 yards, enough to tuck under the cage at the bottom. Takes me 6 minutes to cover each Earthbox. Problem solved!

20200408_075258.jpg

[pepperhead212]

Finally! This is an insect that we do not have in PA.

I was thinking the same thing about NJ!

Actually, we're lucky, in a way, because there are a lot of hot weather bugs we don't have. There are some we have that they don't, but not nearly as many, from what I've heard!

Out of curiosity, I looked it up, and the pickleworm is a tropical insect that only survives in Southern Florida, and some areas of Texas. I don't think we have to worry about global warming getting our areas that hot, at least in our lifetimes.

[brownrexx]

Maybe our bitter cold winters are not so bad after all eh [mention]pepperhead212[/mention] ?

[karstopography]

Haven’t seen them in my neighborhood. But I don’t have SVB either. Not yet, anyway.

[PlainJane]

I hate the darn things! I’ve started more cukes and will be swathing them a la Marsha and hoping for similar success.

[Ginger2778]

I hate the darn things! I’ve started more cukes and will be swathing them a la Marsha and hoping for similar success.

It works. Good luck.

[Clkeiper]

spray your plants with a Bt based spray. whether its liquid or powder it works the same. it is not harmful to people it is only harmful to caterpillars. not bees or adult moths, butterfiles lacewings or ladybugs... just caterpillars.

[brownrexx]

I use tulle to keep cabbage moths off of my brassicas. In this photo I used a slightly bigger mesh than tulle. I also buy it at JoAnn fabrics and it does work great.

DE works too but only after the caterpillars are already on the plants. Excluding the moths keeps them from even laying eggs. However cabbage plants do not need to flower and get pollinated so I never need to remove the cover which makes it easier than protecting flowering plants like cucumbers or squash.

20190406_152601 by Brownrexx, on Flickr

[Greenvillian]

Yep, I feel your pain. Just pulled the remaining squash plants, because pickleworm has arrived here in a big way. They go for my squash before the cucumber. Between SVB, squash bugs, cucumber beetles, leaf footed bugs, and pickleworm.....why do I grow squash???

[pepperhead212]

And that pickleworm sounds like those SVBs and the pepper maggots that are my problems - the eggs hatch, then the larvae burrow into the plant, and then, nothing can be done. Only covering can work if they don't overwinter in the ground, or using a SIP.

[GoDawgs]

I have plenty of row cover so I will be wrapping up the squash plants this evening and unwrapping in the morning. Three of the four are staked so I can't just put them under hoops. And I'll probably apply some bT prior to that. The trellised cucumber was taken down this morning. Lots of brown flowers and baby 1" cukes, all fried in the heat. As hot as it is, pollination will be an iffy thing for a while.

However I started two more plants a little while ago. They're ready and will be planted out Friday. One will go on a different trellis that gets some morning and late afternoon shade. The other will go into an open area where I can rig up shade. I'm wondering if the cuke on the ground will do better than the trellised one this time of year. At least the leaves will give the flowers some shade, more shade than a trellised cuke will get. Another experiment.

[Ginger2778]

I have plenty of row cover so I will be wrapping up the squash plants this evening and unwrapping in the morning. Three of the four are staked so I can't just put them under hoops. And I'll probably apply some bT prior to that. The trellised cucumber was taken down this morning. Lots of brown flowers and baby 1" cukes, all fried in the heat. As hot as it is, pollination will be an iffy thing for a while.

However I started two more plants a little while ago. They're ready and will be planted out Friday. One will go on a different trellis that gets some morning and late afternoon shade. The other will go into an open area where I can rig up shade. I'm wondering if the cuke on the ground will do better than the trellised one this time of year. At least the leaves will give the flowers some shade, more shade than a trellised cuke will get. Another experiment.

Actually my cukes didn't mind the heat and sun. Once I got the worms under control, it was all good. Just took em down 5 days ago. They got overrun with aphids, and even more than the tons of ladybugs could handle,

[GoDawgs]

Well, I've been trying to remember to cover the squash in the evening. I'm using one of my row covers to wrap up two squash plants, holding it shut with clothespins. It happens quickly as the cover is about 20' long and will go around the two plants with plenty to spare.



Of course it had to rain the other evening so in the morning I had to dry the cover. On impulse I hung it from the tomato cages where it dried quickly. I need to spray bT this evening because last night I forgot to deploy the cover.



This year I'm playing with staking the squash after reading an article about that. It's doing so much better, being off the ground where funk hides and just waits for a chance to pounce and where air flow is better. I think it will be a standard practice now, not to mention the ability to grow them closer together.



I'm not going to mention the absence of squash vine borers this year. Nope, nope, nope! Not going to jinx it. Nope! Not at all.