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Lindsaylew82
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Tomato Loopers

For the first time, we have tomato loopers. I am picking several of them off daily from our three plants.

Bird feeder 3 feet away from this years tiny little garden. No biological control to speak of. :/

Do you think I'm just picking them off before they have a chance to be found by my army? They just do so much damage if left.

Caterpillars..... :evil: :evil: :evil:

imafan26
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Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Not all birds are good insect eaters so it depends on the kind of birds that are attracted to your feeder. I would look around your yard for plants that are attracting the butterflies and take care of them too. Dipel works on most caterpillars and preserves the other beneficials. It helps to put in plants and habitat to encourage all kinds of beneficial insects.

Birds in my yard are mostly fruit and seed eaters. The cattle egret is a predator but is indescriminate and will eat the geckos too. I have been able to grow broccoli successfully by not attracting butterflies. I did get a butterfly bush a couple of years ago for propagation, and since then I have seen a couple of butterflies but the geckos seem to be taking care of the caterpillars. I get some damage to the crucifers, but I usually cut the flowers off the butterfly bush to keep them from coming. Eventually, I want to put the butterfly bush somewhere else.

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applestar
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Loopers are moth caterpillars and night feeders, so maybe birds are not good control, though if you are finding them then they should able to as well. My winged tomato patch Garden Patrol seem to consist of mainly House Wrens (not feeders but birdhouse to attract them), cardinals (safflower seeds attracts them but not as much of the birds that prefer SUNflower seeds), and this year, catbirds (no house -- may come to platform feeder if you offer berries). But they need to be nesting birds feeding their chicks. Robins are on the ground and don't seem to catch anything off the plants.

Best predators would be parasitic wasps and larger wasps.

Night blooming flowers like nicotiana, stock, gourds, etc. attract night feeding moths.

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applestar
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...only THREE tomato plants, Lindsay? :shock:

imafan26
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Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Moths are usually attracted to night opening flowers especially white ones and tubular flowers. Moths and butterflies sometimes only take nectar from some plants but use other plants to rear their young. I haven't seen too many loopers on tomatoes, but occasionally a hornworm. I haven't seen those much either. Get some geckos they like worms (unfortunately they love earthworms), beetles, mosquitoes, flies, ants, roaches, and caterpillars. Good plants to attract beneficial insects are members of the parsley , daisy, mint, and yarrows. Fennel, dill, caraway, coriander, Queen Ann's Lace, borage, marigolds, zinnias, cosmos, rudbeckia, herbs like basil, marjoram (let it bloom), achilea, allyssum attracts butterflies but also beneficials, and alliums. Have something in bloom all season round to keep them around. Provide habitat, rocks, hollow tubes or logs, bare soil, shrubs for hiding places.

https://www.farmerfred.com/plants_that_a ... enefi.html

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Lindsaylew82
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applestar wrote:...only THREE tomato plants, Lindsay? :shock:

:oops: I know....I know... Full time work, Full time kids, Full time Biology degree... I'm ashamed of my downgrade... I asked to go part time today. It's just too much.

I can barely manage 3!

(Haven't seen a squashbug yet though!!! I'm chalking that up to the invasive fire ant population currently making claim on the squash blossoms.)

We have lots of wrens. There's a nest on the crook of the gutter downspout 6 feet above the garden. Lots of cardinals. There are red breasted bluebirds and some yellow finches. There are bats here as well. They paruse the pool at night. I turn the light of just to attract them. There are Leyland Cypress lining the backyard. Maybe 50 feet tall. Lots of nesting sites here to attract. Cat birds (mocking birds) are in plenty here. I have dill, basil and cilantro actively blooming. They're all snuggled in there, and I'm seeing a lot of parasitoids, So I know that they're present. I saw a yellow jacket munching away at one of the cats today... that was encouraging. I found some five-lined skink eggs under one of the stones surrounding this bed. I made sure to leave them alone. The cleared dirt is a homing signal for fire ants. Even though its mulched and composted now... They are such a weedy species. They colonize so much faster than anything else, and they are predatory to every freakin amphibian or reptile that even tries to come around. They even run the spiders off here. I've been leaving Spinosad granules in a cup hoping to lure them, but they persist... they ate the skink eggs, and likely ran the mother off.

Everything is planted close. It's all rather intermingled. Cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, eggplant (I'm getting eggplant this year!!! First time ever!), marigolds, bolted herbs.

I'm wondering if the squash and cucumber blooms are attracting them....

I purchased BT. But I don't wanna...

Septoria is awful here this year as well. The Cherokee purple is holding ground, but the Coyote and German Queen are not.. it may just be a busy this year. I won't give up yet....

In my ecology class, we did an experiment with pastry caterpillars, measuring bird predation rates. I wonder if I made some more of those and put them in super obvious places if it would attract more birds. That was such a fun lab!



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