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Each year I notice a small number of potato haulms wilting. Upon investigation I find a maggot eating the haulm away from the inside having made a small hole to make an entry. Fully grown maggot is about one inch long and cream at one end to pinkish/brown at the other. They tend to wriggle quickly just before I snip them in half with my scissors.

Having removed the affected haulm the potato will continue to grow so not a major problem.

Any ideas?

Wire worm?

And if it is wireworm, you need to have a firtle (technical term) around in the soil to get the others.

Thanks guys,

Definitely not a wireworm. Wireworms are hard skinned and difficult to squish. This critter is soft like a maggot. I only ever see one in the centre of a haulm.

Cutworm, then. It's actually a moth caterpillar which, when it's older, will drop down and eat your tubers (painful!!!!) but starts life looking like a maggot inside the potato halm (and eating it).

I seem to remember a similar problem on the Victorian Kitchen Garden DVD where a critter was munching up the stems of cucs and melons. The Victorian cure was to shove a carrot into the soil near the base of the plant and check daily. The critter's fave food was carrot and it always chose the carrot over the cuc/melon.

MKG wrote:And if it is wireworm, you need to have a firtle (technical term) around in the soil to get the others.

The technical term I use is FIRKLE.

Millymollymandy wrote:

MKG wrote:And if it is wireworm, you need to have a firtle (technical term) around in the soil to get the others.

The technical term I use is FIRKLE.

Is that the same technical Scottish term 'footer'?

Had a Google and I am sure the critter is a European Corn Borer.

MINESAPINT

Could be wrong with the European Corn Borer! I just found Be your own Vegatable Doctor by Dr D G Hessayon which I did not know I had. Critter could/probably is Rosy Rustic Moth caterpillar.