Hello Kaynik,

I tried to blow up the picture of the "Stalk Borer" itself, but with very limited success.

It's probably the larva of a moth, which makes it an official "Stalk Borer". I have had some bad experiences with Stalk Borers in my zinnias, in which the borer killed one stem, exited and crawled to another zinnia plant and entered its stem. They are well protected when they are inside a stem. Some native plants here, like the Giant Ragweeds, have strong enough stems to continue living and growing despite a hollow section of their stem.

You can take your revenge on them, but as you have discovered, they have already done their damage.

Other people may have better suggestions. My only suggestion is to grow those varieties of sunflowers that have multiple stems per plant. Or a variety that has thick enough a main stem to survive despite a hollowed out section of their main stem.

Unfortunately I do not really have that option with my zinnias, except when the borer enters the main stem above the junction of two or more side branches.

ZM

It is the larvae of the" sunflower stem weevil ". They over winter in a special chamber they make at the base of the stalk so it's essential that you dig roots and all of infected plants and destroy not compost the stalks. There is lots of info on line about this pest so do some searching. The adult is a black beetle which you can see if you look them up

I did research a bit online but it seemed pretty dismal. I was hoping someone was going to give me a cure all lol

Ill make sure to destroy the entire plant. zen-man is right I got my revenge by cutting every single stalk open and killing all the worms I found. Disn’t make me feel better.

thanks for your replies. I appreciate the information.

Kay