Hi all, I have had a couple of capsicum plants growing in my patch for about a month now. They were semi mature when I put them in (about 30cm tall) and they grew nice new leaves and flower buds. The buds would start to swell, then die and fall off. On closer inspection today I found that a bug had ringbarked my plants! a good 1cm high all the way round! The plant was surviving with the water transferred through the trunk, but there must'nt have been enough to keep the flowers alive. My soil is pretty poor and sandy, so I have beefed it up with rotted horse manure and compost, which has brought all sorts of bugs in to live in the great new soil, but one of them is giving my plants greif! Any ideas on what I can do? It has been recommended to use chloropyrifos around each plant, but I don't want to kill worms and other beneficial bugs. Any ideas?
Well Dover, it';s hard to know the variety of little beasts that you have living in your soil down there in Oz, but here there is a nasty little larva that does stuff like that. It is a sort of worm or grub, it is grayish tan and chews right at that level. They most often do their work at night. With smaller plants, it chews right through the stems. The only thing that I have found that will definately get rid of these cridders is to dig carefully in the area of the freshest attack. They usually are not too deep. It would not be advisable to use poisins, as it might be taken-up by your paprikas. Before you dig, just make sure that there ate no slugs ot snails around.
