Most Southeastern potato farmers, both sweet and Irish, contend a wireworm is a wireworm and the only good one is a dead one.
Back in the halcyon days of multiple insecticidal hammers, soil fumigants and numerous other management systems, that may have been okay, though still probably not economically the best route to take.
With a considerable amount of price instability and ever-increasing input costs, todays potato farmer in the Southeast simply must manage wireworms in order to survive.
Wireworms are the subterranean larval stage of click beetles (Coleoptera: Elateridae). Though wireworms feed on corn, sorghum, small grains, tobacco, and various vegetables, they are particularly damaging to potatoes.
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