Re: CULT: % of losses
- To: Multiple recipients of list <i*@rt66.com>
- Subject: Re: CULT: % of losses
- From: I*@aol.com
- Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 12:50:33 -0700 (MST)
In a message dated 97-03-25 14:33:35 EST, you write:
>YUCK! I've never known about this before. What do you do when
>he/she/it pops? Step on it? Squash it in your fingers? You certainly
>can't let it go to bore another day. If there's one in there, are
>thereusually more or is it one to a plant?
Rima... along with their other fascinating attributes, irisborers are also
cannibalistic - so by the time they're significant, they're also one/fan!
Classic symptoms are leaf fans chewed on the side (notched), slimy stuff at
the base of the fan, and maybe even some sawdust-like material. The borer
moth lays her eggs on iris debris... the larvae hatch and chew into the
fan... and once inside, chew their way down to the rhizome - which they then
hollow out! Sometimes the iris survives this treatment and the borer then
exits through the bottom and goes to pupate somewhere.
The controls are manual... "popping" them in the leaf sheath... or going
after them, cutting them out of the plant and dispatching them into a bucket
of bleach. Not for the fainthearted.
The chemical control is a pesticide called Cygon 2E, which is used as a
drench on 3 occasions... 1. when the fan first begins to grow in the
spring... 2. 10 days after that... 3. 10 days after THAT. Cygon is a
systemic insecticide so that the plant itself becomes toxic, thereby killing
the nasty borer inside.
You only need one good borer infestation to get religion.
Murphy's law of irisborer... they will particularly be attracted to your $40
introduction.... or to the iris you most anticipate seeing.
For some unfair reason, borers are only found in the east. But the west has
OJ.
Kathyguest... who was 'organic' until her first infestgation... picture an
iris patch full of grubs the size of your thumb!!! YUCK!!
