All summer a large shasta daisy has been attacked by something i assumed was a cutworm. I put down diatomaceous earth and it seemed to stop. Now this morning I had six blossums felled. There is no damage to theupper part of the plant, the stems are simply cut off at the soil line.

Isn't August 12 late for a cutworm to still be active. Don't they cocoon up by now? If this isn't a cutworm, what could it be?

This is from a search on Cutworms. From Minnesota:

Moths mate and lay eggs from early spring (black cutworm) to late summer/fall (dingy, glassy, and bronzed cutworm), beginning the next generation. They may go through three generations per year.

Update on my cup idea: All the plants survived, so I guess I can say that it worked, or the cutworms were gone by the time I finally got the cups on - hard to tell. My melon crop is producing both watermelons and cantaloupe now, so it was a success. After the plants started to spread, I cut down with scissors and removed the cup so it would not interfere with the plants.

I have cutworms...tons of them! The only thing that has worked for me is to take the clear 7 oz. plastic cups , cut the bottoms off and put them a good 2 inches down into the soil, then plant my seed inside of them. They used to just mow down my beans and melons, now they don't. I have never had cutworms eat my whole plant, so I think you may have 2 different culprits! You can set a few mouse traps and see if you get something, or sprinkle a layer of cornstarch around the plans and see what kind of tracks you get.

As for your cutworms being gone by the time you removed the cups, not likely! More likely that the stems got too big and tough for them and they moved on to something more tender.