Rabbit eye blueberry completely defoliated

Over a period of 24 to 48 hours some caterpillars ate all my blueberry plant what are they?

2 Likes

Thanks for tonight’s nightmares :grimacing:

4 Likes

Pm me your new address I’ll send you some!!

1 Like

My guess is they’ll grow up to be tasty butterflies!!!

I have a feeling your plant will recover because it looks healthy otherwise.

1 Like

Check this link out. According to that guy it’s yellow necked caterpillar

2 Likes

Yep looks right thanks. I manually removed but I do have bt I’ll watch out in the adjacent bushes

1 Like

There are a lot of similar looking caterpillars but I call them the fall army worm. One year I was totally blindsided when they defoliated a holly. A holly. They come up from the ground so netting doesn’t help. One year I felt I securely netted some kohlrabi and broccoli to discover just the leaf veins were left. One year an entire flat of lettuce was gone in a few days.
They succumb to Bt but you have got to keep it on your plants to keep the population down. I was surprised to find them on my scallions just yesterday. Seriously. They are one of the main reasons I can’t direct seed fall crops. Between them, the slugs and the grasshoppers any seedling is toast.

1 Like

I had those too. I caught them before they could exfoliate more than a few branches. It was a big colony of them

Reading the label on Bt, it says that larvae will stop eating and die after 3 days

After 3 hours, they can have a plant defoliated

I knocked all of ones on my trees into a cup and sprayed them with bug killer, put the lid back on the cup. I sprayed the trees again with insect tree spray. No more issues after that. You are right they can strip in tree in just hours.

So true, but if you keep Bt on your plants, it does get them when they are smaller and not such a big appetite. Consider the alternative. :blush:
Around here it’s the only way to get good looking brassicas - i.e spraying Bt every 7-10 days. I have it in powdered form so you can use it in a dust or spray.

1 Like

Never seen anything like that on my blueberries before…wonder if they have any natural predators like birds and such?

I haven’t found birds to bother with them so much, and as Lois points out, you kinda have to keep inspecting your plants and get on it quickly. Besides, if you net your blueberries, well, birds won’t help anyway.