The case of the missing tomato leaves.

One of my co-workers, David Hubbard had a question from a client who wanted to know what could have completely defoliated 36 tomato plants in a two night period. The damage was described as tomato stems and main branches remaining with no leaves or evidence left. My response was I felt it was too early for tomato hornworms or some other kind of caterpillar and it was likely a four legged rather than a six legged critter. (diagram from NCSU publication)

The client re-planted and decided to watch the garden the first night. He went out with a flash light and observed some bugs on the foliage. He treated the tomatoes with sevin dust and the next morning found large numbers of dead bugs at the base of the plants. He brought the bugs in for me to identify and they turned out to be vegetable weevils.

The interesting thing was the that these critters had never been a problem for this seasoned gardener of 30 years. When we discussed his recent gardening activities he reaveled one minor change in his normal modus operandi. Because of the drought of 2007 he had planted a large number of collards and turnips near his back porch where the water hose was available. Normally his greens were planted far away from his home. He recently destroyed the left over winter greens by tilling and then immediately planted tomato seedlings to the area. Upon investigation I noted that these greens were the host plants for the vegetable weevil larvae. My guess is when they became active the only food available were these tiny tomato plants and they completely stripped the foliage in short order.

The moral of the story is be careful to not jump to conclusion without a thorough investigation.