Eggs are laid on tomato leaves and hatch in five days. At dusk they hover over flowers sucking nectar. The adults are large, fast-flying hawk moths, which in flight may look like a hummingbird. Many growers don’t bother looking for the caterpillars because they blend in so well, and instead just look for the frass. The frass of young hornworms is small, but the hornworms grow larger quickly and so does the frass. The frass is often the first noticeable sign of their presence. Look for feeding damage and frass (insect poop) around tomato and pepper plants. The hornworms will also attack fruit, eating gouges out so large that they look more like bites of a furry animal pest than an insect. Sometimes it seems that healthy-looking tomato or pepper plants are stripped of their leaves overnight, leaving bare stems. They are giant caterpillars that grow rapidly and can do a vast amount of eating in a very short amount of time. Hornworms are probably the most destructive insect that attacks tomatoes. Pest/disease identification and lifecycle, most common damage symptoms and crops affected: If you live outside of Iowa please do not submit a sample without contacting the Plant & Insect Diagnostic Clinic.This resource is offered as part of MOFGA’s Pest Reports Fact Sheet Series Please see our website for current forms, fees, and instructions on preserving and mailing insects.Ĭontact information for each states diagnostic laboratory for U.S. The Iowa State University Plant & Insect Diagnostic Clinic will identify your insect, provide information on what it eats, life cycle, and if it is a pest the best ways to manage them. Do you live in Iowa and have an insect you would like identified? When hornworms are observed, handpicking is usually sufficient control action.
Carefully watch for larvae and feeding from June to harvest. Parasitism and other natural factors keep hornworm populations sufficiently low in most gardens. Hornworms blend in with the foliage and are difficult to see until much defoliation has occurred. Ravenous leaf feeding by hornworm larvae may result in extensive defoliation. A hornworm can eat a considerable amount of foliage that may look like severe damage, but actual yield loss is probably slight. The well–known tomato hornworm is more often a curiosity in gardens rather than a pest, though outbreaks have been known to occur. The larvae feed on the foliage for 4 to 5 weeks before growing to the commonly–seen size of 3 to 4 inches long. The adult hawk moths emerge in mid- to late June and lay eggs on the lower side of host plant leaves. The insect spends the winter in the soil as a large, brown pupa. Both species have diagonal white stripes along the sides of the body. The short, slender horn on the tip of the abdomen is red on the tobacco hornworm and green on the tomato hornworm.
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