A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Horned Tomato Worm W/ Trekigramma wasp eggs

Found this under neath a Jalapeno Leaf. took it to Calloways Nursery Terry the manager said it was Horned Tomato worm with Trekigramma(sp) wasp eggs where the wasp had stung the worm several times. When I first saw it you could not see any green for the eggs. He said they will slowly eat the worm untill they mature. Pretty good free Trekigramma wasps.


more to come

sorry the last one was shakey

Are those "good" wasps???

Yes Triss they are good people buy them year after year and I got mine free when they didn't like their old home. They sell them here by the card one person I know of bought cards of 30 to place in an orchard. They eat the bad insects as well as aphids I have been told.

WOW, I never heard of that before. Congrats on your eggs then!

well, if you can manage to keep them around- congrats on the eggs. as for me i squish those worms, they just give me the creeps. they are too huge and gross and i can't stand to look at them. i found one last year and ran away and told my husband to kill it. yet, give me a nice fat juicy worm and i'll pick him up barehanded. i can squish cuke bettles with my fingers. not afraid of wasps either- hubby tells me to go get them while he runs like a girl. just something about those huge horned worms grosses me out. LOL

Great pictures, Jimmy, of the "Free" wasp babies....

*I said in another post,
"Knock on wood", I don't get those
big bad worms, I grow alot of tomatoes..*

I've heard that the Horned Tomato Worm develops into a beautiful moth. Anyone know if that's true. If it is, seems like a shame to kill them. I used to pick them off (carefully) and put them in my compost!!!!!!! Was I creating a monster?

Oh, Jimmy, that is SO GROSS!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats on your good wasps, and thank God they killed that nasty hornworm!

Hi there...
I am in need of those wasp eggs too. This morning I took 2 tomato worms off.. one from the pepper plant, one from tomato plant. I get grossed out squishing them, so I drown them instead... Course I feel kinda bad about that...but hey they are eating my plants. What other suggestions do you have for organically getting rid of them?? besides the wasp eggs, and picking them off by hand.

It's TRUE!!! I forget what they are called so Ill have to google it and come back....

Am I the only one that

http://www.vegedge.umn.edu/vegpest/hornworm.htm

Gotta love the speed of the internet!

You guys can send all your hornworms here. If I dont get something to eat my tomato plants soon, Im going to be buried in 4th of July hybrids!!!!

'Sparagus,

As you now know, they turn into a hummingbird moth. I love caterpillars too! That is how I taught my boys about the circle of life. I don't know how I would feel if it were eating my maters though. I have never had the problem.

Shirl

Here is a link with nice color pictures of the humming bird moth.

Hummingbird moth

the time for editing my previous post had elapsed, therefore I needed to correct myself in this post. Tomato hornworm turns into this moth.

Tomato Hornworm moth

Yes they are beautiful moths, in the hummingbird moth family. However when they damage the tomato plants like they do (i found one on my pepper plant too) it becomes very discouraging. I have taken 15 caterpillars off over the past week.
I prefer the nice woolly bear caterpillar moth myself.

Thanks for sharing with us Jimmy.

Sparagus....That was a very interesting site, Thanks!

Sparagus thanks for the websites. As for as worms etc good or bad I don't kill them because there is always another insect,bird etc that will eat it and balance things out. That one was on a pepper plant so far have taken a bunch ot peppers off of it so that worm didn't do much if any damage.

I know what you mean, Gator,it is discouraging to grow something and pamper it and then the hornworm comes along and defoliates a plant overnight! I found three of them on my wonder egg plants!