Tomato Caterpllar?

[Antipodean Bucket Farmer]

Hi Everybody,

In the past couple of weeks, I am getting the first ripe tomatoes of the season. Yay - they are good.

But, just now, I went to pick one, but sort of knocked it right off the vine, without any pulling. And I find...

Right inside the fruit, where it was connected to the stem... A caterpillar, about 1 cm or so long, white- ish, with a black head. It had definitely been

*inside* the fruit, and had sort of dug itself in. There was a small amount of black stuff and damage immediately surrounding the bug. But there was *not* any sign of entry or tunneling.

So maybe this pest came through the stem? Perhaps some butterfly or moth laid an egg in the flower?

Note that I am in New Zealand, and had vaguely heard (I.e. "I-read-it-on-the-Internet-so-it-must-be-true") that we don't have the regular tomato borer worms here.

Any ideas on ID and defence?

Thanks...

[GA Pinhead]

ABF:

In our hemisphere, they are tomato fruit worms. A moth laid the egg on the small fruit. Bt will take care of them.

John!

Antipodean Bucket Farmer wrote:

[Loki]

If you have an unknown pest ring up MAF, they may need to know about it.

Oh, seems they know about it:

's a far too long list of bugs at: is : seem to be a lot more exotic pests in NZ than I remember from

20 years ago. I never see a NZ praying mantis now, they're all South African ones.

Pity really.

il Thu, 17 Feb 2005 22:24:52 -0500, GA Pinhead ha scritto:

[John Savage]

That sounds very like a fruit-fly. Do you get the Queensland fruit-fly in NZ?? It might go under a different name.

Regardless, you could try a tip I heard on our weekend radio gardening program. When the tomato is still small, envelope it in a length of pantyhose (women's stocking). I imagine you tie it at both ends, so it resembles a Christmas bon-bon. The stocking stretches as the fruit develops, yet protects from the tomato borer. (I don't know whether it offers protection against the Qld fruit-fly.) With any luck, it might even protect against the predations of birds (- just a thought).

[Loki]

il Sat, 26 Feb 2005 23:35:12 GMT, John Savage ha scritto:

If we get it, we shouldn't have! I'd take a sample to a MAF office.

How many stockings would one need?? I've used the method to collect seeds before they disperse in the wind, but for each tomato - or this for each truss?

[John Savage]

I pictured e.g., Gross Lisse where you could cut a length of stocking sufficient for each fruit. But if you were growing those tiny tomatoes that hang like bunches of grapes, maybe you could enclose the whole bunch in one length of stocking.

Some fig growers enclose individual fruits in fly-screen mesh to protect the fruit from birds.