What more disgusting than a tomato hornworm?

[beac]

A tomato hornworm that looks like this:



But wait! DON'T REMOVE THAT DISGUSTING THING FROM YOUR PLANT!!

Those little white things are cocoons from a braconid wasp. They will kill off the worm and hatch to produce more pest-eating wasps! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braconidae


I've found four of these revolting but wonderful situations on my plants so far. Hurrah!

[amerikat]

1. Very cool. Nature never ceases to amaze.

I haven't seen any horn worms yet but I'm on alert for them from your earlier post.

I do have a couple of tomatoes called Prime Time sitting in the kitchen. They are almost as big
as a grapefruit. One slice and you have a tomato sandwich.

[WhiteTara]

2. wow. how did you coax the brconid wasp to lay eggs

in your garden?

[beac]

3. Beats me. The egg-laden hornworms just appeared one day.

In fact, just this morning I found three new soon-to-be-dead-by-braconid-incubating hornworms on some plants that had previously escaped infestation. I'm guessing this is the second generation of wasps going after the second generation of worms. The nasty worms had hardly had a chance to eat a leaf and were already covered from head to toe in eggs. I combed over the plants and only found two more TINY worms that hadn't yet been egg-ified. They went into the Bucket of Death. :evilgrin:

This site says the wasps are attracted to nectar (I have a hummingbird feeder very nearby) and to the flowers of dill (among others) and I do have some dill that I allowed to flower and go to seed. http://www.thenatureinus.com/2008/06/tomato-hornworms-and-braconid-wasp.html

Maybe that's the secret? :shrug:

On the other side of the house with no feeder and no dill, the hornworms devastated my nicotiana plants (they also like things in the tobacco family, which nicotiana is.)

[WhiteTara]

4. congratulations for your well balanced

environment! :toast:

[beac]

5. I had to chuckle at "well-balanced environment" b/c

life has been extra-crazy at casa beac lately, so thanks for the reminder that at least my garden is in harmony.