Tim did you have get a good night sleep?

valleylynn said:Tim did you have get a good night sleep?

I'm not so sure... I think I slept with one eye open... and occasionally thought I heard the marching of hundreds of tiny feet.

I'll take another look tonight and see what's going on, I can't be 100% sure that I got the right critter. I was looking over the damaged areas in my semp garden today and noticed a well defined progression from one semp to another. The stolons would disappear off of one side of one semp, and then one side of the semp next door, and so on. If I was plotting this on a police crime map, it would have been easy to see a pattern and maybe even predict the next victim.

Doing a little research it seems that millipedes can be an agricultural pest. When there's alot of 'em, or when the food choices are limited. The latter case would apply to me. This millipede would have been more than happy to live out his life in my compost bin, but I likely scooped him up when I was moving dirt and dumped him where there was nothing to eat but juicy semps. It's a theory.

Theory sounds good to me. Time to put out an "APB"...

Another night mission has brought in another suspect, possibly working in tandem with the previous suspect, and possibly many more.
I went and searched with my flashlight where the most recent damage was, where I had found the millipede, and found nothing. Good. I worked backwards to previous victims and noticed the back half of this guy protruding from underneath a semp's lower leaves. How I managed to spot him is a bit of a miracle, but he was in perfect position to munch away on low-lying stolons or leaves.
I believe this is a Cranefly larva. I see these from time to time in soil that I'm digging, but I've never seen one topside in action. It is not a cutworm as it has no legs or eyes. And Google images leaves me with little doubt of what this guy's true identity.

Yes Tim, that is the culprit. I have found a couple in one of my beds this year. They can be very destructive. I think our mild winter created conditions for us to see more damage from the culprit.

Good sleuthing work Tim. Let's hope he doesn't have a lot of friends.

Other than winter rabbit damage, I've had very little pest problems this year. Hope it keeps up! I did notice we have a huge toad population so maybe that's keeping any bug problems down. And it's been quite dry this summer. We get 2-3 days of rain, but then we get major wind right after that and it dries up the moisture immediately. I've already had to water my semp beds a couple times this spring and that's pretty unusual.