Large narcissus fly

My Tong electric.rice@gmail.com
Tue, 22 Oct 2013 14:24:41 PDT
Hi all,

I'm a relatively new grower of Hippeastrum this year. Well, I just found a
fat NBF larvae together many smaller larvae that don't look like any of the
lesser bulb fly in quite a few of my hippeastrum pots. The bulbs look
healthy and have no yellowing leaves. It is quite a disaster as I probably
would have to go through all the pots to check (I found a couple 2 weeks
ago too). Glad I found these grubs accidentally while repotting. Well, I
tried the tweezer, but couldn't get the NBF larva out of the deep
zigzagging tunnel in the bulb's flesh. I poured hot water in, hopefully to
get it to come out, but only the smaller larvae crawled out. What do you
suggest I should do? Last time I placed my smaller 16cm bulbs in boiling
water for 10 mins, which killed all the larvae as well as all the roots,
which subsequently led to all the leaves dying off later. I feel that the
boiling method set back the young bulbs so much especially in growing
season, so I'm wondering if anyone had tried a different approach? Maybe
pour constant hot water in the tunnel and later apply some liquid
insecticide that can kill them instantly? I prefer not to kill the roots
this time. I'm curious if one can mix the Bayer 24 hr Grub Killer Plus
(Dylox) with water and use this mixture to spray in the hole to eradicate
all the larvae? Thanks for all your help.

On a different note, I am study film making and can make video interviews
of some of our experienced bulb growers on topics our members are
interested in. However, my service is limited to the Bay area and probably
Southern CA close to Orange County when I visit family.

My



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