Research

I was asked for information on getting rid of an awful attack of Wireworm in a garden. I spoke with Steven Marsh (a potato grower) and he relayed this information.

Get hold of some poor tubers, either those which have started to sprout in the bag, or left overs that were too small to plant. Cut these up into pieces and put on metal skewers then push them into the ground to a depth of about two inches. The Wireworms will go for them and when they are full lift them out and plunge into a pan or pot of boiling water.

(Description from the book: The pocket garden troubles expert, Dr.D.G. Hessayon), Wireworm - Hard and shiny underground pests are a problem in new gardens and in plots next to grassland. They are slow moving, not like the centipedes. Wireworms eat the roots of most plants and may burrow up the stems of Chrysanthemum and lettuce.

Good soil preparation and regular cultivation are the only answer and long and labour intensive solutions.

(Information from the book: Diseases of crops and their remedies, Dr.A.B. Griffiths)The Click Beetles (Elater sputator, Elater obscurus, Elater sanguineus, Elater lineatus) belong to the Elateridae, and ‘may readily be known by the hinder angles of the thorax being pointed, and also by their power of jumping up, with a slight clicking noise, when laid on the back. Most of the species are black, or bronzed, or partly black and partly yellow. E.sanguineus is a bright-scarlet insect, with a black head and thorax. The beatles are commonly met with on flowers, etc., in the daytime; and their larvae are too well-known everywhere, as WIREWORMS, being long and slender, with tough skins, and feeding on the roots of plants.

Wireworm has a three to five year cycle, according to the supply of food. A scarcity of food means a prolonged existence in the larval stage. In the winter the larvae go deeper in the soil, to avoid the severity of frosts. At the expiration of the larval period, the wireworms again go deeper in the soil, surround themselves in earth-cells, and there change to pupae. The pupae either hibernate until the following spring, or appear as perfect insects in from August ‘the eggs from which these grubs are hatched are laid either in the earth close to the root of a plant, or between the sheathing leaves near the base of the stem. Once upon a time you could buy ‘Draza’, a product which has now been recalled for various reasons.

Prevention: Good cultivation and liberal manuring produce strong and vigourous plants, which may yield, in spite of the land containing wireworms.

Burn all rubbish on which the wireworms may possibly feed.

Cure: Green manuring wiht buckwheat or white mustard, destroys the wireworms as well as the mustard beetle.