Something in the stems of my zucchini plants

[moonflowers]

My zucchini plants have something that is eating their stems right at the soil line. They are tunneling through. The plant overall is still producing veggies and the majority of the leaves look healthy but a few have begun to wilt. I now am noticing the same thing on my cucumber except half my cucumber plant is dead! What could this be and what are some possible organic solutions. I looked it up in my gardening book and suspect it might be squash vine borers but the books suggestion is to slit vines, but wouldn't that kill my plant?
I had zucchini plants last year and they died in midsummer, I have a feeling that these were the culprit. Any ideas?

Thanks ahead of time!

 

[TillinWithMyPeeps]

It definitely sounds like a vine borer. If you could locate exactly where it is, you may be able to make a small cut up the stem (rather than across it) and extract the culprit.

 

[moonflowers]

Thanks, I think I will give it a try and I bought some BTK to spray around it too, to prevent the problem from happening again.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

i think you can mound soil up on the vine to keep this from happening if you have these bad boys...

anyone else know if this is true or not?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I tried posting to this but something happened. This may wind up a double post.

I have not experienced the squash vine borer. I have read you can take a strong flashlight and silhouette the borer in the stem and stick a needle or pin through the borer, killing it. I've also read you can make a lengthwise slit in the stem, remove the borer, put the stem back together and mound soil, kept damp, around the injury to help it heal. I think I'd trust the needle more. I think you need to keep looking for the borer until you go at least three nights without finding one.

Something else that is supposed to help is to emcourage secondary rooting. This is where you mound dirt around a joint in the stem to encourage the plant to send out additional roots. All mine are bush type plants so this doesn't work well, but if you have a squash with a vining habit, maybe it will help.

I've also seen posts on here where you can wrap the stem with aluminum foil to keep the borer out. I can't remember the details but I think it is just the first few inches above the soil line and maybe just into the soil line.

Good luck!

 

[curly_kate]

One trick I'm trying this year is to plant radishes around my zukes & pumpkins. I've heard it repels squash borers. So far, so good, but it's early yet. I tried mounding soil over the vines so that they'll root, but by the time I did it, the plants were too far gone.

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

All very good suggestions so far.

I've used the radish around the base to help deter squash vine borers.

I would use the cut away method as described above.

Also, make sure you keep mulch away from the base. If the cut away method the BT (or BTK) would work using a syringe.

A small piece of aluminum foil wrapped around the base can also prevent further infestation.

 

[gumpsgirl]

I had this problem last year and we cute the borer out of the stems, mounded the dirt back around where we cut the worm out, and the plants healed up just fine. The only problem was that it was tedious work, which is worth it in the long run to save the plants, but I'm wishing there was another way around it. I have been scrapping the eggs that the moth's lay (this is where your borer comes from) off of the leaves where I can find them, but this year it seems that there is way to many eggs for me to get off or spot completely.

What is the BTK spray that you are referring to? That sounds like it will come in handy here.

 

[moonflowers]

I had this problem last year and we cute the borer out of the stems, mounded the dirt back around where we cut the worm out, and the plants healed up just fine. The only problem was that it was tedious work, which is worth it in the long run to save the plants, but I'm wishing there was another way around it. I have been scrapping the eggs that the moth's lay (this is where your borer comes from) off of the leaves where I can find them, but this year it seems that there is way to many eggs for me to get off or spot completely.

What is the BTK spray that you are referring to? That sounds like it will come in handy here.

Here is a website that sells BTK and has some info about it. http://www.ghorganics.com/Thuricide BTK for Caterpillars.html
I am worried it is too late for my zucchini plants, especially the biggest one. We tried cutting the stem to find them but didn't find anything. I throughly sprayed them with a BTK mixture and then mounded the soil around the affected area. Hopefully I will be able to keep most of my beautiful plants which have just begun to yield zucchini.

 

[gumpsgirl]

Thank you for the link and good luck with your plants. I hope you can salvage some of them.