Quote:
Originally Posted by b54red
I hate to be the lone voice against BT which I use all the time. The type caterpillar that is hitting us right now is rarely stopped completely by BT no matter how often it is applied. These little buggers grow fast and feed voraciously and during a spell of rainy days can nearly destroy the foliage on your tomatoes and even your bell peppers. I myself was using BT and removing leaves where the bottom side was covered with tiny worms up until a few days ago when they just became an overwhelming problem so I used liquid Sevin and sprayed as much of the undersides of the leaves as possible and hit every one of my tomato plants except one lone volunteer. In two days they had shredded a third of the leaves of that one plant which I dusted with Sevin yesterday. The Sevin totally knocked them out and at least until the next hard rain I won't have to worry with them. They are not usually too much of a problem later in the season but right now with frequent rains they can be really destructive. In just a few days they go from tiny little things to big caterpillars that will also ruin your fruits.
BT works great on most caterpillars but a few years ago I was applying it nearly every day in either liquid or Dipel dust when these caterpillars were really bad and found that eventually I had to resort to the Sevin to stop them. It seemed that the BT slowed them down some but not enough to stop the destruction of my leaf cover protecting my tomatoes from sun damage.
Bill
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Was your BT fresh? If it has been on the shelf for more than a year, usually it is nearly dead. Could it be that it was a bit old?
May 25, 2016
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