RE: iris DIGEST V1 #386

Francelle Edwards  Glendale, AZ  Zone 9





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Hello, Chris,

I sympathize with your borer problem.  I know there are solutions
though.  I wish I could remember names well enough to be specific, but
there is a insecticide that, sprayed on plants, gives caterpillars and
worms a fatal dose of bacteria.  It's harmless to everything else but it
destroys caterpillars.

Last year I lost several blooms.  I would find a round hole in the stalk
or bud.  The stalk would be hollowed out and filled with the creature's
droppings.  We don't have iris borers here in the hot Southwest, but
this bothered and mystified me.  I suspected plain old cutworms.  Sure
enough, one day I caught one inside a flower, just a cutworm.  I haven't
seen damage like that this year.  Cutworms do like tiny seedlings
though, so I always put Bug Begone dust on the seedlings as they
germinate.  That stops them.  I don't know if it would hurt your small
strange caterpillars.

I would visit a nursery and ask for an insecticide against caterpillars.

Francelle Edwards,  Glendale, AZ

Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 18:29:50 -0400
From: Chris Darlington chrisdarlington@videotron.capr
Subject: [iris] Cult: Spathe borers

Hello Everybody,

Does anybody have problems with moth larvas that bore through the
spathes and demolish the entire bloom ?  I'm having great difficulty
controling these things and wonder what others do to put an end to the
damage caused by these pests.  These little white borers are about 1/4
long and have two little black specks for eyes.   I treated lightly with
Cygon 2E about three weeks ago but it was either ineffective or not
timely.  

These borers could cause me to abandon Irises forever if I can't learn
how to control them.  Seeing flowers rot on the stalk and not open is
VERY discouraging :-(

Any help would be greatly appreiciated.
Chris
North of Montreal

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