A New Pest In the Scallions

[GoDawgs]

I've never had anything mess with the scallions before but there's a new-to-me pest that's arrived this spring and chewing on them. I sent this pic to the extension agent:



He said it's the Yellow-Striped Army Worm. So I looked it up and if anyone else is dealing with these, here's a link:
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/...d_armyworm.htm

So what's with the army worms all of a sudden? Last fall I had an eggplant being covered and devoured. The entomologist at UGA said they were the Southern Army Worm. Never had them before either and they're different than these guys. She said spraying bT only works on the SAW if they're 1/2" long or less. After that, not so much so every day I looked at every eggplant leaf to handpick any bigger ones that survived the bT.. There aren't many of these yellow-striped ones so I'm hand picking them and the scallions are the only thing being messed with.

Go figure. Just posting this in case anyone else runs into them.

[AlittleSalt]

I had one here in Texas a few days ago. For the first time in many years - I'm not growing onions/scallions/garlic. The worm I saw looks exactly like those in your picture.

[b54red]

Sevin will get rid of them fast.

Bill

[bower]

Thanks for posting GoDawgs. I didn't think there was anything that would eat scallions other than slugs when they're bad. Will keep an eye out.

I figure I'm asking for trouble by growing more alliums here every year. But it's really tempting to do it, because the big critters that chow everything else will leave them alone.

[PhilaGardener]

There also is a new introduced pest on onions/garlic that is spreading quickly, the allium leafminer. First discovered in PA in 2016, it can cause 100% failure of a crop at the field level.


https://extension.psu.edu/allium-lea...merge-in-april
https://ento.psu.edu/extension/veget...lium-leafminer

[bower]

That sounds nasty too. Will keep an eye out for that "charismatic orange face"

[GoDawgs]

Originally Posted by PhilaGardener

There also is a new introduced pest on onions/garlic that is spreading quickly, the allium leafminer. First discovered in PA in 2016, it can cause 100% failure of a crop at the field level.


https://extension.psu.edu/allium-lea...merge-in-april
https://ento.psu.edu/extension/veget...lium-leafminer

Thank you for posting this. I sure hope they haven't gotten down here in Georgia. About a month ago I noticed some onions with wavy leaves. This is only my second time growing onions but I never saw this last year. After reading your links I just went down to the garden to take pics and pull one of the onions. Looks like what PSU has in their pics:



And this kind of looks like ovipositor lines:




I pulled and dissected the onion. No problems around the basal plate. Made a longitudinal cut on the wavy leaves. Nothing but a fat armyworm in one of them. Also made the same cut in the 5" section of stem just above the bulb and unwrapped each layer. No pupae or larvae. Whew!

Still, I'm going to forward these pics to the extension agent. If he says there aren't any allium leafminers here (yet), great. But I still want to know what's going on with these several onions.

Again, thanks for the heads up!

[brownrexx]

That looks sorta like ALM damage but not quite as curly. I gave up growing onions and garlic because of it. I don't think that they have spread as far as Georgia yet.

[GoDawgs]

Got a reply from my extension agent who said that the wavy foliage my onions has "environmental" causes. Hmmmm....

[gorbelly]

I get the yellow striped armyworms in my garden all the time (although they happen later in the year up here), but I have never seen them on Alliums. Wow.

[GoDawgs]

The bT spray seems to have done the trick as I haven't seen any more of them, thank goodness.