RE: HYB: Verbena Bud Moth larvae

Hi,
Jim Hedgecock spoke at the recent SIB Regional in
Minneapolis and he said the only way to stop this
from happening was to peal the flower petals back
when he did the hybridizing and then go back when
the pod forms and break the rest of the flower
away.
He does his hybridizing the second day so he goes
out and removes the falls on every flower he is
going to hybridize the first day it is open then
goes back the second day and does the hybridizing.
Char New Berlin WI

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-iris@hort.net
[o*@hort.net] On Behalf Of
willwarner@alltel.net
Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2005 7:42 PM
To: iris@hort.net
Subject: [iris] HYB: Verbena Bud Moth larvae


While harvesting Iris seed pods the last couple of
days, I noticed several 
that had holes in them from Verbena Moth Larvae.
This is nothing new, 
they are really common here.  Something I hadn't
noticed before is that 
most had entered the pod right where the dried
flower was curled over 
and touching the pod.  I remove these dried
flowers when harvesting the 
pods, and that's when I noticed the holes in the
pod, the dried flower 
was hollowed out and filled with dropping from the
grubs.  I'm 
wondering if the moth lays it's eggs on the flower
and then the eggs 
hatch and the grub burrows into the pod?  I wonder
if it would help to 
remove the dried flowers from the pods earlier?
When I find the holes in 
the pod, I removed the grub.  Most of the time
there would only be one, 
but on some there were several. On some of the
more dried pods, the 
grub had already turned into a cocoon.  I did
notice a few pods where 
the grub had entered toward the bottom of the pod,
where the remants 
of the sheath were, droping were more visable.
Most pods that were 
properly cleaned of the sheath and the dried
flower had remained away 
from the pod (usually still up in the air), had no
grubs.  I harvested over 
150 pods this year, the most ever for me.  Has
anyone else ever noticed 
this?  I'm also curious if Verbena Bud Moths are
common all over the US? Will Warner SW MO Zone 6

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