IMPORTANT PECAN INSECTS AND THEIR CONTROL. 



11 



Fig. y.— The pecan shuckworm: 

 Moth. Enlarged. 



posited singly on cither the nuts or the 

 fohagc. During the summer months the 

 average time of hatching is about 5 days, 

 but the time may vary considerably, de- 

 pending upon the weather conditions. 



Tlie larva upon hatching is a very small, 

 whitish, 16-footod caterpillar, but when 

 full grown it is about three-eighths of an 

 hich in length and has a creamy white body and light brown head 

 (fig. 7, at right). It is in the larval stage that injury is done to 

 the nuts. 



The pupa (fig. 7, at left), which is brownish, is always found within 

 the mfested nut. Before transformation to the pupa stage the larva 

 prepares a small silk-lined cocoon, and cuts a small circular hole on 

 the outside of the shuck, which facilitates the issumg of the moth. 

 Upon the emergence of the moth the pupal skin is extended a short 

 distance through the circular cut (see fig. 10), the lid of which 

 remains attached to the nut in a sort of trap-door arrangement. 



SEASONAL HISTORY AND HABITS. 



Tlie number of broods of the pecan shuckworm probably wiU be 

 fomid to var}^ from one to three for the comitry as a whole. Li 

 the extreme southern portion of its destructive range apparently 



Fig. 10.— The pecan shuckworm: Pupal skins protruding from shucks of pecan nuts. 



three generations occur each year, but in the Northern States, where 

 the insect subsists on the various species of hickory, there is perhaps 

 only one generation. The moths, which develop from larvse that 

 spend the whiter in the fallen pecan or hickory shucks, begin to 

 appear m northern Florida as early as the middle of February and 

 continue to emerge until the latter part of April, the spring emer- 



