few are seen almost every year, but never in my experience have they 

 been seen in numbers that warrant control measures, even if we had any. 



Another "worm" is the grub of a small weevil known as the currant 

 fruit weevil. This is usually a minor pest, but has been the cause of 

 serious crop loss in at least one Massachusetts field. The beetle lays 

 her egg in the berry stem or in the berry close to the stem, and the grub 

 works into the green berry and feeds therein. Infested berries color 

 prematurely and are small and shrivelled. They may get into the first 

 picking, but generally they have been knocked off or have dropped off 

 by the time of later pickings. In the usual light infestation, malathi- 

 on or carbaryl as recommended for the next two pest should keep it from 

 building up to serious proportions. 



The two most important green fruit pests throughout the range of the 

 cultivated blueberry are the cranberry fruitworm and the cherry fruitworm. 

 These are the culprits that like to wander around in the package under 

 the cellophane and make you wish you were in some other business at times. 



Cranberry fruitworm is the more obvious of the two because of the 

 frassy web it makes as it feeds in a cluster of berries. Each worm may 

 destroy half a dozen or more berries before it finishes feeding. The 

 caterpillar is green until nearly mature when it takes on a reddish brown 

 tinge on the back and sides. It is about 1/2 inch long when mature. 

 When through feeding it drops to the ground and spins a hiburnaculum of 

 web and sand, where it remains until the following spring when it trans- 

 forms to an adult and starts another infestation. 



The cherry fruitworm feeds in a manner similar to the cranberry 

 fruitworm, but it does not make a web. Often the first indication of 

 its presence is the appearance of prematurely-coloring fruit. The num- 

 ber of berries each larva feeds in is not known, but is probably some- 

 what less than is the case of cranberry fruitworm. Don't let that mis- 

 lead you, as they can make up in numbers for their smaller size and ap- 

 petite. As many as 75 have emerged from a pint, and 2 to 3 dozen per 

 pint is not uncommon in a moderate to heavy infestation. The worm or 

 caterpillar is a bright orange -red color and is about 1/3 of an inch long 

 when full grown. It has the habit, when finished feeding, of boring into 

 old pruning stubs or scars on the bush where it spends its life until the 

 following season, when it transform to a moth to start the trouble all 

 over again. 



Control of these 2 pests is obtained with timely applications of 

 carbaryl or malathion. If both are present in damaging numbers, 3 appli- 

 cations may be needed, but usually 2 are all that are required. The 

 first application should go on toward the close of bloom (75% set) of 

 early varieties, and a second application 10 days later. A third appli- 

 cation a week after the second may be worthwhile in a heavy cherry fruit- 

 worm infestation. 



The last, but by no means least important, of the blueberry "worms" 

 is blueberry maggot. This past summer saw it more abundant than usual 



