Cutworms, right?

==>>> not necessarily ...but maybe.. but i never heard of them dragging it away ...

i am thinking .... sunflower is not rootable ... but what do you have to lose ...

its early enough.. to just direct sow.. some more seed ...

ken

Oh when I said a worm dragged it into its hole, I meant earthworm. But yeah I can just sow more. That's not a big deal. I was just curious about the science of it.

I don't think an earthworm could drag a sunflower into a hole. It was more than likely that your culprit was a mole or vole that had tunneled it's way to your plant.

If it was a cut worm that cut off your plant it would remain right under that plant feeding on it's roots. They are not interested in the plant, only the nutrients stored in it's roots. Since cutworms are solitary creatures there would be only 1.

In order for any plant to make roots you must have a leaf node--place where a leaf comes from the stem. All roots--for cuttings-- and branches on a plant develop from a leaf node. Without them (as in a sunflower stalk) a plant can't make roots

"All roots--for cuttings-- and branches on a plant develop from a leaf node." That's not strictly accurate. Check out internodal cuttings used for some plants such as Clematis.

However, it wouldn't work for sunflowers and I'm not convinced even nodal cutting would work. But you have nothing to lose from trying.

It would have been the leaf node that was pulled into the ground (by something!) as the shriveled cotyledon leaves laying on the ground were what it grabbed. I'm not sure how large mole or vole holes are but this one was about the size of a pencil and very close to the house. That's one bold critter if it was one! I've seen other times where rotting straw was pulled into a similar hole. Stuck straight out so I knew something pulled it in. I'll let you all know how this turns out!

Floral--I'm well aware that some plants can be started from leaf divisions and other modes of starting new plants. What I gave is a general rule of thumb to a person who obviously doesn't know that a sunflower won't make roots from just the stem and I wasn't about to go into detail of all propagation methods

I lose my vegetable seedlings to earthworms routinely. They do much more physical work than most people realize. This applies to young seedlings without a well branched root system, of course.

They also rearrange seedlings and seeds, pulling or pushing them to their preferred location. I scold them for redecorating without my permission.