A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 Cut worms

I'm helping out a friend, he was telling me that when he plants corn, and when they start coming up, that some new shoots are clipped off at the ground. I told him that it could be cut worms, would this be correct?? and someone told me that rabbets would do that also.

If it's cut worms, how can you get rid of them??

Or could it be something else clipping the shoots off from the ground...He is from Philadelphia

Thank you for any help you can give me.

Please try the site below:

University of California-Davis IPM (How to manage Corn Pests)

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/selectnewpest.corn.html


Click on Cutworm.

Thanks papito,

I sent this on to my friend.

Could be cutworms, if the shoots are laying there wilted, suspect rabbits if the remaining shoot has an angled cut, sorta like this / and if there is NO evidence, you probably have birds, they like to yank up corn shoots and carry them off.

Thanks Phil and Laura,

Yes, the shoots are laying on the ground, I thought it might be cut worms. I'll let my friend know.

We use to plant sweet corn, but we had a lot of problems with RACCOONS....They sure can destroy a lot of corn. They take one bit from the cob, than go to the next one.

They just weren't brought up right <img border="0" alt="[tongue]" title="" src="graemlins/tongue.gif" /> ...LOL

Thanks again
Lorraine

Well you are entirely welcome Lorraine, this is not to say some other critter isn't "tasting" the corn shoots and leaving them, but cutworms is my bet.Coons are a tough critter to stave off, a long time ago a friend told me to leave a radio on in the patch at night, all it did was provide entertainment for thier dinner!

all it did was provide entertainment for thier dinner!
Hi Phil and Laura


LOL...I bet they enjoyed it too