Braconid Wasps

Last summer, I battled the Tomato Hornworm, which threatened to decimate my tomato plants.  These worms can be as large as six inches and they attach like Velcro to the tomato plants.  Their green color makes it hard to locate them . . . until after the damage is done.  Seriously, they look like hookah-smoking caterpillars.  Every day, I had to put on some heavy-duty gardening gloves, search diligently for the hornworms, peel them off the plants, and chuck them into the woods.  (I discovered that I do not "throw like a girl" when it comes to protecting my garden.)

Well, this year, blight got my tomato plants early on, and although I do have a small crop of tomatoes coming in, I figured the hornworms wouldn't bother with my pathetic plants, as they were losing their leaves to blight every day.

I was wrong.

Today, I saw the first evidence of hornworm presence.  One plant had clearly been compromised by some leaf-loving predator.  While the blight attacks from the bottom of the plant up, I saw damage on some upper growth.  I started looking for a hornworm, and sure enough . . .

So why did I sprinkle rice on top of that hornworm, you are wondering?  Well, I didn't.  What you are looking at are cocoons of pupating braconid wasps.  According to the Internet (in which everything is true), a natural predator of the tomato hornworm is a tiny beneficial insect called the braconid wasp. This wasp lays its eggs inside the hornworm caterpillar where they hatch into larvae that feed on the hornworm's muscle tissues, while leaving its heart and other essential organs intact until the larvae mature. This largely paralyzes the hornworm, which becomes merely a living fresh food vessel that sustains the wasp larvae. Once the braconid larvae mature, which takes about a week, they then exit through a hole they make in the hornworm's skin and build a silken cocoon on the outside within which, like butterflies, they transform into adult braconid wasps that then fly off to infect other tomato hornworms. 

Pretty cool, huh?  Well, sure, it's a grizzly way to die, but no worse than the way the hornworm tries to kill my tomatoes.  It's a question of balance, as always.  For me, I am happy to let Nature take care of the situation.  I will not pass judgment.  Just let me have tomatoes.

(But I am really, really in love with the braconid wasp!)