THE EGG 



The female beetles begin to lay eggs when the first blossom buds show pink 

 and continue to do so through June. Some lay fifty or more. Only one egg is 

 laid in a bud, the beetle pushing it with her ovipositor into a hole made with 

 her snout. It usually is placed among the stamens near the bases of the anthers 

 (fig. 56). It is smooth, glistening, oblong-ovoid, pale yellowish, and nearly a 

 fiftieth of an inch long. It hatches in three to nine days. 



THE GRUB 



The normal hatching period is the last half of June. The grubs develop and 

 pupate in the blossom buds. They mature in ten to fourteen days. The mature 

 grub (fig. 57) is whitish and has a yellowish head but no legs. It is about a ninth 

 of an inch long. 



THE PUPA 



This (fig. 58) is about an eleventh of an inch long and pale yellow at first, 

 but it finally turns brown. The legs, wing pads, and snout lie tightly against 

 the body. This stage lasts about six days. When the beetle emerges, it eats 

 its way out of the bud near the calyx lobes. The beetles usually come out mostly 

 during the first third of July. 



Treatment 



FLOODING 



Ordinary late holding of the winter flood fails to reduce this pest much. A 

 complete flowage for two days about June 1 is effective, especially if 5 gallons 

 of kerosene for each acre of bog is poured onto the water along the windward 

 side soon after the vines are covered. 



SPRAYING OR DUSTING 



The beetles can be killed readily with a spray of 6 pounds of cryolite or 3 pounds 

 of 50 percent wettable DDT powder in 100 gallons of water, 400 gallons to the 

 acre, preferably on a warm day in the spring after the new growth of the vines 

 starts but before the beetles lay eggs. This is between May 20 and June 1 

 most years. It may be used to kill the beetles of the new brood at any time 

 from their first appearance till early August, but it should be applied as soon as 

 they appear. 



Dusting with 50 pounds of 10 percent DDT to the acre is also efi^ective but 

 is not advocated as a treatment for use in August. 



Cranberry Tipworm ^^ 



Vigorous vines very often recover from the attack of this insect and yield 

 well the next year. Those that fail to do so might have been unproductive anyway. 

 In view of this, it is hard to say just hv.v harmful the pest really is, but it 

 tends to reduce crops and should be controlled. It infests flowed bogs much 

 more than strictly dry ones and tends to attack Howes vines more than Early 

 Black. Flooding kills or drives ashore many of its natural enemies and may pro' 

 tect hibernating worms from winter severities. Frost sometimes reduces an in- 

 festation greatly when it kills the cranberry tips. 



Distrihiition and Food Plants 

 The tipworm is abundant and causes concern in Massachusetts, New Jersey, 

 and Wisconsin. The fact that it is prevalent in the Grayland district and not 

 found elsewhere on the Pacific Coast seems good evidence that it was introduced 



^ Dasyneura vaccinii (Smith). 



[60] 



