Topic: white grubs

[anemone]

I've just found loads in a big pot. Are they always bad news? A quick google suggests probably vine weevil but the plant in the pot seemed just fine. I was busy splitting and repotting it into smaller pots.

[Ellen K]

oh dear, yes they are bad news, they eat away at roots as the year progresses until the plant dies.  I have found Provado can save plants but if you are organic I don't know what to suggest.

[anemone]

oh dear. thanks for the quick reply. I actually don't have room for the plant so was splitting it into smaller pots for friends. I suppose i need to throw them all away now as although i didn't see any go into the smaller pots I wouldn't want to risk passing it on.  :(

Do i need to do anything special to the big pot before I reuse it?

[Tee Gee]

Is this what they look like ?



This is the grub of this fella;



The Vine weevil

[Ellen K]

well, I just give old pots a good clean and sometimes I scald them with boiling water, that is likely to be enough to reuse.  Maybe it is best just to bin your plant - I have some large shrubs in pots and they need the Provado vine weevil killer soak in the Spring to keep going long term.

[anemone]

urgh ! They look much smaller than that thank goodness but yes now I've looked closer they do have brown heads like that.

I'll bin the plant then and wash the big pot, wish I hadn't spent so long repotting all the little bits of it ! 

do I throw all the grubby compost into the bin too? there is such a lot of it.

[lincsyokel2]

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?PID=234

[Alex133]

Vine weevil is absolute pain, have lost countless overwintered plants to them. Have put off using killer stuff as try to be organic but think going to give in and try Provada unless anyone has better suggestion. (Grown up weevils should be squashed on sight, and if you have chickens they love the grubs!)

[grawrc]

You can use nematodes against vine weevil. Highly effective but not cheap.

[lincsyokel2]

Professional growers use compost that is mixed with insecticides targetted at Vine Weevil, there use to be a stuff called Vi-Nil that killed them for 18 months, then the good old EU made it illegal.

[Bugloss2009]

vine weevils can't fly, so you may have some protection if you can have your pots surrounded by a trough of water somehow. Not done it myself but i would do if I had some super special primulas for instance

[grawrc]

Professional growers use compost that is mixed with insecticides targetted at Vine Weevil, there use to be a stuff called Vi-Nil that killed them for 18 months, then the good old EU made it illegal.

Possibly because the toxins that killed the weevils were good for neither people nor crops?