pepper plants cut off at stem

[SuperChemicalGirl]

Ok. New raised bed this year, new dirt that was bagged.

Planted 2 bell pepper plants in it and they were doing great until last week. Last week I noticed one of them was getting a little wilty and leaning to the side a bit. I touched it and it fell over, the stem had been cut. Weird, bad luck. Well today the same thing happened to my last pepper plant! It was still mostly upright, in the dirt, but the stem had been neatly cut at ground level. This is in the middle of my raised bed, none of the other plants were harmed. What gives?!

 

[thistlebloom]

That's what cutworms do Super'. You can put collars around your plants stems, a few inches high, and pushed into the soil about a couple inches to protect them. Collars can be made from cardboard, newspaper or foil. Cutworms are the larvae of moths, and usually hatch from eggs that overwinter in the soil, so since your soil was bagged and the bed is new, it seems odd that you would have them.
But it certainly sounds like cutworms to me.

 

[vfem]

Oh yea, cut worms all the way!

 

[patandchickens]

Yuppers, cutworms!

In addition to collars for prevention, it can be worth carefully poking around in the soil around your plants to see if you can find the culprit, otherwise if it manages to defeat your collars (or you don't get them on right away) you will lose one plant per night per cutworm for quite a while. Very annoying, especially with a major plant like peppers (as opposed to bush beans or something like that, where you would normally have planted a bajillion of them anyhow)

Chickens think cutworms are very yummy btw if you happen to find one They are dull greenish-grey caterpillar things hiding in the soil, almost maggoty-looking as caterpillars go, that instantly curl up into a tight C shape when disturbed.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[SuperChemicalGirl]

Well I guess that makes sense, thank you guys for your quick response. When we dug the raised bed in there were some grubs in the soil, I didn't think anything of it. I caught them and fed them to the chickens.

I'm guessing these were cutworms then?

I lost 2 pepper plants so far and my eggplant is looking really badly wilted today. I am so mad, I've nursed these darned things from seeds. They were not part of the original garden that I put out that I had huge losses from due to 3 weeks of rain, wind and cold. I was proud of myself for keeping them going inside until it was safe outside. Now I see I was wrong, again.

And if I didn't have bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.

 

[thistlebloom]

Sorry Super', some seasons are like that in the garden.
Good thing gardeners tend to be resilient types. Hope things start looking up for you soon, get those collars on!

 

[SuperChemicalGirl]

It's ok, I'll probably be railed on here but I spread some carbaryl (Sevin dust) around the soil of the 7 remaining plants in that raised bed, then 3 wooden matches around each of them. I couldn't find any worms when I dug into the dirt.

I just put some more pepper seeds in a wet paper towel in a ziploc baggie hoping they'll sprout in the next day or so and I can get them in the ground. Otherwise, I'm buying seedlings.

Grr.

 

[wsmoak]

Chickens think cutworms are very yummy btw if you happen to find one They are dull greenish-grey caterpillar things hiding in the soil, almost maggoty-looking as caterpillars go, that instantly curl up into a tight C shape when disturbed.

Ew, so THAT's what those are. I usually find one or two digging around in the dirt, (and squish them,) but they haven't caused any damage that I've seen. Possibly because I started everything from seed way too early and didn't put it out until the plants were *quite* mature? It probably couldn't cut through them by then!

-Wendy

 

[seedcorn]

Cutworms have priority feeding. If you kill, pull whatever they prefer, they will go on down the list. Sometimes, weeds are a good thing when it comes to insects.

Best way to kill them is use a 20 ga loaded w/buckshot and blow them up. Don't have a shot gun? Use your bazooka or heat seaking missiles.

 

[SuperChemicalGirl]

Cutworms have priority feeding. If you kill, pull whatever they prefer, they will go on down the list. Sometimes, weeds are a good thing when it comes to insects.

Best way to kill them is use a 20 ga loaded w/buckshot and blow them up. Don't have a shot gun? Use your bazooka or heat seaking missiles.

While here we are heavily protected via the second amendment, I neglected to purchase either a bazooka or heat seeking missiles last time I went to town.

I do, however, have Sevin dust as some chickens I bought at a farm swap had mites. Hopefully that will work. I hate to use stuff like that, but I hate even more to lose plants in my short growing season in less than 12 hours.