hello everyone,a friend thinks he has tomato leaf miners overwintering in his green house.any advice gratefully accepted .thanks.

Is the concern about tomato plants in the greenhouse? And what are they overwintering on? And have you or this person checked out the life cycle of Leaf Miners?

And where is this person located? Leaf Miner infestation of tomato foliage is not all that common but can be found in some of the southern states in outside plants.

Carolyn

I've dealt with these only in outdoor situations. I've been very successful with an agressive pluck and destroy pattern. Pinch off any affected foliage and remove it absolutely (ziploc baggies are great if you can't burn immediately). Spray the bejeebers out of the tomato plant with pyrethrin-based spray (miners are apparently repelled by it) and watch the leaves like a hawk. Pinch out any showing tunneling.

I have had to essentially denude a plant with a bad infestation, but once the leaves are plucked and the plants are fertilized, they've sprung back very happily and flowering was only delayed by a couple of weeks. On the plants that I really had to strip, I also trimmed out the blossoming ends, because I figured that a plant that had no leaves had no business having blossoms til it had something to feed them with. Those plants re-leafed and reblossomed almost simultaneously and didn't really seem much the worse for it, other than the couple of weeks' delay.