Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 221, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1917 — INSECT DOES VAST AMOUNT OF INJURY [ARTICLE]

INSECT DOES VAST AMOUNT OF INJURY

Corn Ear Worm Does Much Harm to Garden and Field Crops —Fall Plowing Urged. The corn ear-worm does a vast amount of injury each year to valuable garden Xndfleld crops. It is practically the only Insect which injures the ears of field and It is decidedly the. worst Insect pest of sweet corn. This worm does considerable damage to tomatoes by boring into the green and ripening fruit and is known to the grower as the tomato fruit-worm; It bores into the “bud” or unfolding leaves of tobacco and is known to the planter as the tobacco

bud-worm; and it is also one of the serious pests of cotton in the South; where it is called the cotton boll-.worm from its habit of boring into the cot-ton-bolls. The full-grown worms are variable in markings and color, but usually they are a dull greenish or brownish color, with indistinct - stripes or spots, and are about 1% inches long. Winter is passed in the pupa or resting stage in the soil. When the worm becomes full grown it burrows down in the soil about three inches and constructs a tube or gallery nearly to the surface of the ground for the use of the moth which will come out later. The worm retires to the bottom of the gallery and changes to the pupa or resting stage. It is in this stage and under such surroundings that thfe insect passes the winter. According to T. J. Talbert of the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, one of the best means of control is fall plowing and harrowing or disking, in order to break up the opening tubes or exit galleries of the soil. This also brings the resting stage (pupa) of the insect nearer the surface, where the alternate freezing and thawing during' the winter will have a greater effect in destroying it. Fall plowing and cultivation have been found almost 100 per cent effective for the area covered.