Re: help with the bore!
- To: Multiple recipients of list <i*@rt66.com>
- Subject: Re: help with the bore!
- From: N*@aol.com
- Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 06:46:13 -0600 (MDT)
In a message dated 7/27/97 8:19:32 AM, you wrote:
<<ules... Kathy Guest here from Western New York
I'm about to launch into another irisborer monologue so sit tight.
You do NOT need to treat the soil.... you do NOT need to resist planting
irises. What you DO need to do is to understand the life cycle of the
irisborer (I went to a very expensive lecture where an IRIS speaker stated
that irisborer was caused by shade and that they lived their whole life
underground....NOT TRUE)
An irisborer starts out as a very shy moth who ... in the fall... deposits
her eggs on iris debris (FIRST METHOD OF CONTROL... keep all dead leaves,
etc. cleaned up). The larvae hatch in the spring (SECOND POINT OF
CONTROL.... very early spring clean up).... and eat into the side of the iris
leaf (BE VIGILANT... watch for sawtooth marks on the side of the iris...
sawdust stuff at the base of the fan... or a wet appearance). Once inside...
being the charming life form they are... they eat each other until there is
one super borer who works his mighty way down the fan (IF YOU SUSPECT
BORER...you can go into the leaf sheath and drag him out into a bucket of
clorox... or squish him between the leaf with a hearty pinch).
When the borer arrives in the rhizome, he hollows it out... then exits
underground to pupate until he becomes his moth-self later in the fall.
The chemical of choice is used against the larvae stage (although the moth
stage seems like an easier mark... bug zappers in the iris garden???) The
only effective chemical is CYGON 2E. It's used as a drench, since it is a
systemic insecticide. We apply it 3 times in the spring... once at tulip
first bloom..... then 10 days later... then 10 days later. You should not
then have any borer.
So tell your friend to stock up at the STIS sale next weekend, and plant with
confidence. In the meantime, turn over those beds good.... work in some
alfalfa pellets and bone meal. Then sit back and wait for next year's bloom.
Kathyguest... preparing for our OWN sale today!
>>
Good advise, Kathy. A bore likes shade and lives forever underground???
Ahhhhhk!! I've heard it all.
Harry Wolford
N8KXP@AOL.COM
OH.
