Friday, August 24, 2012

Petunias Keep Tobacco Worms Off Crop, 1949


By F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, as published in the Wilmington Star on Aug. 4, 1949

Wayne K. Moore of Bushy Fork, Person County, found out something new this year. Mr. Moore had heard that tobacco flies like petunias. So he planted a bed of these flowers about his farm home.

He took care of the petunias, and they grew luxuriantly. Each evening, just before sundown, the moths which lay the eggs hatching into tobacco horn worms would swarm over the petunias and from three to six times a week, he and the children would catch the flies or moths as they gathered the nectar from the flowers. By following this plan, he said he had few horn worms on his tobacco this season, and he believes that if all growers in a community were to follow the plan, it would not be necessary to use so much arsenate of lead and other chemicals in protecting the tobacco crop from worms.

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