Tip - Corn Earworm and Tomato Fruitworm Control

The corn earworm—which is also known as the tomato fruitworm and the cotton bollworm—is a caterpillar that eats the fruit and leaves of corn, tomatoes, beans, peppers, squash, lettuce, peas, potatoes, and other crops. Corn earworms follow corn silks into the tips of husks and chew their way through the kernels. As tomato fruitworms they bore into the stem ends of tomatoes and peppers and tunnel into bean pods and lettuce heads. Besides chewing crops they leave behind excrement which hosts mold and pathways for rot organisms to follow. At their least destructive, corn earworms chew leaves and buds leaving plants disfigured and stunted. By eating corn silks they inhibit pollination. Handpicking, insect traps, and drops of suffocating mineral or vegetable oil are the least invasive controls for corn earworms. Bt, Bacillus thuringiensis, or a dusting of Sevin will slow heavy infestations. The corn earworm, Heliothis zea, is the larvae of a night flying moth. [...]