The BackYard Jungle Part XVI: Cutworms

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How to stop them?

To fight those varieties of cutworms that sever the stems of seedlings, simply make up a batch of stif cardboard plant collars-each 2" to 3" high-pressing one a half inch or so into the soil around each seedling at transplant time. You can also employ small tin cans for this purpose, though my personal choice is to cut 3"-long sections of 4"diameter plastic drainpipe, forming collars that will protect seedlings from hungry field mice, as well.

While collars may also provide a modicum of protection against climbing cutworms, the wise gardener won't count on this defense. These acrobatic pests are best controlled by methodically plucking them off your plants by hand and then destroying them by foot . . . or by treating your garden with Bacillus thuringiensis.

Cutworms can also be at least partially controlled by encouraging the presence of natural predators and parasites in your garden. Birds love to scratch the ground looking for these plump morsels; ground beetles-those black or brown, somewhat flattened beetles that live under stones and debris-hunt cutworms at night and can put a sizable dent in their numbers; and the tiny wasp Trichogramma minutum deposits its eggs among the eggs of the cutworm moth so that the newly hatched wasp larvae can feed upon the embryos inside the unhatched moth eggs.

Also, since the owlet moths most often deposit their eggs in ground debris, cleaning your garden area of weeds and mulch each autumn will help minimize cutworm damage the following spring by reducing the number of miller larvae hatching in and near your vegetable patch.

Finally, deep plowing or tilling, combined with slightly delayed planting in the spring, can be a highly effective deterrent to cutworm infestation. The tilling will destroy a great many hibernating (second season) cutworms, while simultaneously removing the tender young weed seedlings that any newly hatched survivors of the tilling will need to nurse them through their first few days of life.

As our hypothetical horticulturist discovered, cutworms are among the most destructive of garden pests. But, by combining commonsense organic battle tactics with tenacity, the little blighters can be defeated.

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