Ugh! Corn Worms!

[OnionPatch]

This year is the first year in my life that I've grown corn. We always had it when I was growing up, but it's the first time I've grown it myself. It's going great and is starting to ripen but every ear seems to have those darned corn worms in them! We've just been cutting off the damaged part, eating it anyway (it's delicious!) and feeding the worms to the chickens (mmmm, mmmm) but I just read that you can use BT to kill them. At this point, is it too late? 3/4 of my crop is not quite ripe yet. Maybe some BT squirted into the tip of each ear would minimize the damage for the rest of the crop? Anyone have any other advice for fighting these little buggers? Next year I'll definitely do something ahead of time for prevention.

[spinbaby]

1. It's a wormy kind of year

We're having a helluva time with squash vine borers and tomato horn worms.

[OnionPatch]

4. I read that the stuff I used, Bt works on hornworms, too.

Have you tried it? I seem to be having some good results with it.

[spinbaby]

5. Didn't seem to work on the vine borers

Haven't tried it on the tomato worms--we just picked them off and threw them over the hill.

[Kolesar]

2. We sprayed soap solution on our second planting of corn &it damaged it

A 10% solution of Murphy's Oil Soap was great for killing the cabbage worms on the broccoli, cabbage, and brussel sprouts. It made the cayenne plants look sick and it made the corn brown, yellowy and sickly at the joints. The second planting of corn still has tassels, so maybe it will yield something.

I really don't know what to tell you to use. good luck

[spinbaby]

6. Use insecticidal soap

NOT Murphy's Oil Soap. All that does is strip the protecive coating off the leaves.

[OnionPatch]

3. Well, I used the Bt a few days ago

I squirted it down into the tip of each ear and today we ate several that were ripe. There were places on each ear where worms had eaten but there was a worm on only one and it seemed sluggish! I'm hoping this stuff worked. It's supposed to be completely non-toxic to people and pets. My corn patch is half and half and I noticed the second half is not near as close to getting ripe as the first. That's good news because hopefully I've treated them before the ears developed and the worms could eat them. It would be nice if the second half were worm free.

[sazemisery]

7. BT worked great for me

I sprayed the corn and broccoli once a week and had no worms in the corn. This was only after worms had decimated my broccoli leaves in 4 hours.

[OnionPatch]

8. That's good to hear

We had more corn last night. :9 There were no worms in any of them but they all had damage. I peeked in one of the ears from the younger batch and there were no worms or any sign of them having been there. :woohoo: I'm going to spray again on Monday.

Too bad about your broccoli. I think I used it on broccoli a few years ago with good results. We can't grow broccoli here in the summer but I'm starting some this weekend inside for a fall crop. We had broccoli through the winter last year until a late, hard frost killed it off.