Anyone know of a good method to eliminate cut worms besides staying up all night and stepping on them? Any soil treatments?

Thanks for any help.

For my Tomato plants I put a 16 oz paper coffee cup around them with dirt up 1/2 way to hold them in place
Seems to help
Not 100% but I’ve had good luck doing that
Cut out the bottom and slit up the side
And wrap around

I don’t like chemicals

Sevin kills cutworms and other insects vey well. I use Sevin and the knockoffs, many times a year. It works great on yellow jackets living in holes too.

Keith

We cut a red solo cup to make a plastic rim around the transplanted veggie. Can get 2 rims from one cup. I expect a paper cup will work just as well and might be easier to cut with sissors.

If you are using cups, just use a sharp hole saw bit and a drill and do the whole stack at once.

Keith

My biggest problem with them is they cut the tender corn seedlings within a few days of them sprouting. I may try spreading 7 dust along the rows and see if that helps. It's a little frustrating to see the corn looking good as it comes out of the ground and then watching them slowly being cut off over the next several days. I wasn't sure what was doing it until I found several cutworms last year while weeding around the young plants.

Thanks.

Beer traps work for home gardens but maybe not practical for a corn field.

Supposedly a handful of wood ash holds cut worms back, or a dusting of diatomaceous earth kills them but needs reapplying after a rain or irrigation

I do the same thing with my small garden. But, it sounds like he's got a more than a small garden, so the cup thing might not work. Thuricide is a very low toxic pesticide used by organic farmers to control caterpillars and similar pests. I have used it on my broccoli, brussel sprouts, and cauliflower plants to control cabbage worms and moths with good success.

Thuricide (Bt) needs to be consumed to work, the caterpillars may not need to eat much, but the plant may be cutoff before it works. On a large planting Sevin may be the best bet,