NURSERY AND ORCHARD INSECT PESTS 35 



Crown Borer (Tyloderma fragoriae). This beetle breeds abundantly in 

 the crowns of older plants doing considerable damage. New plantings and fields 

 reset often do not suffer. Keep down volunteer plants and plow under aban- 

 doned patches. The beetles are unable to fly, so new fields should be set at 

 some distance from old ones using only young plants. Those distributing 

 plants should sell only the young plants which are not infested. 



White Grubs (Lachnostcrna spp.). In recent years numerous complaints 

 of white grubs have come from strawberry growers. They attack the roots, 

 weakening or killing the plants. Often where sod is plowed under and straw- 

 berries planted in the ground serious injury may result. Where old fields are 

 not abandoned and new ones set often enough the brown June beetles, the adults 

 of the white grubs, may visit strawberry fields and deposit their eggs thus 

 starting an infestation. Some species of white grubs may feed as grubs for 

 two or three seasons. 



CONTROL. Set new fields on uninfested, cultivated soil and replant often 

 enough to prevent this pest becoming abundant and injurious to the crop. 



In this report no effort has been made to discuss all the thousands of in- 

 sects which may attack the various fruits. Only those, which for the past 

 ten or twenty years have been of most serious injury to nursery stock and the 

 bearing fruit crops, have been included. Fruit growers and nurserymen, there- 

 fore, who have trouble with species not discussed herein, should communicate 

 with the Agricultural Experiment Station, Columbia, Missouri and the pest 

 will be investigated, if a new important one, or information on its control 

 promptly given. Investigations are now being made of a number of the pests 

 discussed herein and when completed the results of these studies will appear in 

 full in future station publications. 



