Pests & diseases › Wireworms
Wireworms
Thin yellow-orange shiny grubs (larvae of click beetles). Tunnel through potatoes, root crops and onions.
Symptoms
- Narrow tunnels straight through potato tubers
- Holes through carrots, onions, beets
- Stunted seedlings, eaten roots
- Worst on land recently broken from sod
Lifecycle
Larvae live 4–5 years in soil.
What to do
- Lift potatoes early
- Trap with halved potato or carrot buried just below soil — lift every 2 days
- Encourage robins, blackbirds
If it's bad
- No effective home-garden control
Stop it coming back
- Cultivate often the first 2–3 years after breaking ground
- Early potatoes escape worst damage
- Numbers drop after 3 years of cultivation
Crops it goes for
Beetroot
Carrot
Fingerling Potato
Gourmet Potato
New Potato
Russet Baking Potato
Storage Potato
Sweet Potato
Yellow Potato
Plan the plot, track every sowing, cook the harvest
Sowing reminders and harvest forecasts for your own frost dates, the Seed Tin, Scan Centre for any label or packet, and the Potty Mouth Garden Club. Free to start.