THE GRAPE-BERRY MOTH. 



Order Lepidoptera; family Tortricid.ee 

 Polychrosis viteana Clemens 



Most vineyardists are familiar with "wormy" grapes. In America 

 the "rogues' gallery" of insect pests now includes three different 

 kinds which have been known to infest grape berries and thus produce 

 "wormy" grapes. 



The maggot of a minute Chalcis-fly works in the seeds inside the 

 berries, causing them to shrivel in August; it is known as the grape- 

 seed insect {Evoxysoma vitis) and is widely distributed, but it rarely 

 attracts attention by its injuries. 

 In the Mississippi Valley the 

 grub of a small beetle known as 

 the grape curculio {Craponius 

 inaeqvalis) works inside the 

 berries in July, but it is rarely 

 a serious pest. The cause of 

 most " wormy" grapes through- 

 out the United States and 

 Canada is the caterpillar of a 

 small moth — the grape-berry 

 moth — which is always present 

 in most vineyards and often in 

 very destructive numbers. 



The grape curculio probably 

 does not occur in New York, 

 and the grape-seed insect has 

 never been injurious in the 

 State. But the grape-berry Fig. 12. — Bathymetis sp., parasite enlarged; 

 moth has infested most New hair-line at side represents natural length. 

 York vineyards for many ^^ ^^^ '^ 



years, often to a serious extent, and it is responsible for practi- 

 cally all the "wormy" grapes. For two or three years this insect 

 has been unusually destructive in several vineyards in the famous 

 Chautauqua grape region, sometimes more than half the crop being 

 ruined. Although during this time we have jnade important and 

 extensive investigations on the grape root-worm and the grape leaf- 

 hopper (see Bulletins 184, 208, 224 and 215) in Chautauqua vine- 



