Thursday, August 13, 2015

The Insidious Vine Borer

The vine borer moth is an insidious creature. It looks like a wasp, but it does not sting. Thank goodness for that at least. This moth is a fast flyer, but in the early morning hours you can find them resting on leaf surfaces. All the better to squish the little buggers.


Each moth lays about 200 eggs, so can you imagine what happens when these pests show up in numbers.

In my garden, the moths seem to prefer zucchini, but they will lay eggs on just about any type of squash including yellow straightneck, delicata, acorn and tatume. I've even heard of people complaining that the moths were attacking their cucumbers. Jeesh. I hope that doesn't happen to mine.


The eggs hatch into worms that burrow into the squash plant and begin eating from the inside. There is no easy way of dealing with this annoying pest. The worms are protected against potential sprays because they stay tucked inside the stem. When the damage becomes severe, the plants will begin to wilt and struggle to survive.



The tell tale sign that a vine borer is eating the plant is the frass that appears along the stem. All that chewed up plant material has to go somewhere.


When the worms get their fill, they crawl down into the soil and pupate in their cocoons.


I started growing tatume squash because it has the ability to re-root at the leaf nodes. The vine borers still attack, but the plant is able to survive and continue to produce fruit.


Growing tatume squash on a trellis support is probably not the best idea because the plant does not have as much contact with the ground as it needs to continue to survive against the borers.


The vine borers were particularly destructive this year. The moths overwhelmed the plants by laying eggs at all the leaf nodes.



I could tell the plants weren't doing well, so decided to go ahead and remove them. I cut through the vines with my pruners looking for the worms.


After finding 73 worms in just four plants, I realized that these plants had become a vine borer nursery providing the perfect breeding ground for more moths. 


I disposed of all the infected tatume vine, but the fascinating thing is that I have other tatume squash growing that is completely unaffected by the borers. I wonder why? I'm going to save the seed from the unaffected plants and see what happens next year. 



12 comments:

  1. Were the other ones planted at a different time. One year I tried planting a trap plant early and then some later ones which fared better. Could be that the moth dies after a certain amount of laying and then your plants are safe. I have also been the route of removing eggs and crushing them with my finger nails but never had as many as you. Of course I only have a few plants. It's a lot of bending to get a few squash. Never had this problem in any other state I grew zucchini.

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    1. The tatume plants were all growing at the same time, but in different locations. Vine borers have multiple generations during the summer, but this summer I've seen round after round of moths. I thought this late in the season would be clear sailing, but wouldn't you know I just saw a vine borer moth this morning. I'm very worried for my beautiful pumpkin plants.

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  2. Ally, what a great discussion about these little monsters! And I had thought that Tatume was not as susceptible. It's amazing to me that anyone can grow squash.

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    1. Unfortunately, tatume are not bullet proof when it come to the vine borer. The search for squash that the vine borers don't like goes on.

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  3. Allison,
    Those are the best vine borer pictures I've ever seen.
    Cindy S.

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    1. Thanks Cindy. I owe my photos to my abundance of subject matter and my iPhone :)

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  4. The only good squash vine borer is a squashed squash vine borer! I tried tatume last year because it is supposed to be more resistant to the borers. That was not my experience. It also attracted squash bugs and some other type of stink bug. I did not plant squash this spring in the hopes that they would forget where I lived and I might get a crop later. I planted some seeds for the fall, so we shall see what happens. Some people inject BT into the vines to kill the larva. I may try that sometime.

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    1. I've read about injecting BT, but I haven't tried that yet. i purchased micro mesh in the spring and tried covering the plants. The plants outgrew the micro mesh in no time. I'm going to try sewing 2 panels together next year.

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  5. Very interesting, it is so frustrating when these pests get into the garden. Excellent photos!

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    1. Yes, indeed, these pest are very frustrating. Whoever solves the problem of the vine borer will be hailed a national hero.

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  6. I usually don't even bother growing squash because of the vine borer any more. In fact, I just started some in late summer because I had leftover seed after having not grown it for like 5 years. And wouldn't you know, those damn bugs found the squash within a few weeks. Sadly, this is the best that the squash has done (3), so I feel obligated to try to keep it alive long enough to get the squash from it.

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    1. Wow, they found you that fast after 5 years! I keep saying I'm going to quit growing squash, but the most I've managed to stick to that resolve is 1 year.

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