White maggots in tomatillos

10 years ago

From what I can tell, at LEAST half of my tomatillos are ruined. Just rotting. Picked some Thursday, and what seemed fine then was rotten by Monday. Picked some more yesterday, and decided to rip a few open. There are little white maggots in them. And to make it even more confusing - there are not necessarily holes in all of them - like maybe there were eggs in the flowers, and the maggots eat from the inside out? There are some little pin-hole sized marks on some of them - not holes. Maybe they were holes that healed up after the maggot got in? realizing now that I should have taken some pictures. I'll try to do that soon.

Anybody have any ideas on what these could be, or how to avoid them in the future? I did a bit of searching the web, and have found nothing. I've been growing tomatillos for years, and have never had this before. :(

Featured Answer

digdirt2

10 years ago

Do they look like small fruit fly maggots? I have had a terrible time with them this year thanks to all the rain, cracking and splitting. But even when you bring what looks like a perfect tomato inside and next thing you know 50 of the little buggers come crawling out around the stem joint. You can see the hole where the eggs were laid.

http://www.thebugsquad.com/fruit-flies/fruit-fly-life-cycle/

Dave

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Comments (7)

ekgrows
Original Author
10 years ago
Interesting Dave. Thank you for your suggestion. I guess that is possible. I haven't seen any fruit flies around. Some do have small holes, others nothing. Every tomatillo I broke open had just one maggot in it - not multiple. I will inspect the fruit more, and take pictures.
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ekgrows
Original Author
10 years ago
ekgrows
Original Author
10 years ago
Way too big to be a fruit fly. I'm at a loss.
farmerdill
10 years ago
Possible. Pepper maggot (Zonosemata electa ) It is a large maggot that does attack other members of Solanum, http://ipm.ncsu.edu/AG295/html/pepper_maggot.htm
ekgrows
Original Author
9 years ago
I found out what these maggots are! Reading Southern Exposure's seed catalog, they mention husk worms being a pest. I looked them up, and sure enough, that's what they are. I have noticed these in past years in some of the black walnuts on the property as well, so it seems this location is NOT the place to grow tomatillos. Just thought I'd share what I found.
Kari Johnson
last year
last modified: last year
Hey there! Just wanted to let you know I had the SAME PROBLEM and have scoured the internet, unable to figure out what it could be. I knew it wasn't cutworm or fruitworm. THANK YOU for sharing this information! Did you figure out a solution or just stopped growing tomatillos?