Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

Jim, Elijahapril and all,

I viewed the picture of the worm infested radishes. Is the worm a pale yellow? I can't tell from the picture. The worm looks very much like a
Wire Worm. If it is, the life span in the soil is six years at which time it emerges as the Click Beetle.

I had them years ago at our old community gardens. Thousands of them.
They ate their way into the roots of any variety of vegetables. If you put a piece of a potato into the soil, the wire worm will gravitate to the potato and do exactly what it did to your radishes. Dig around the area and hand pick
them. They will be easy to see.

One defining factor of the wire worm, it has a reddish brown head. I am only guessing, but in all of the years of gardening and pest control I have done, that is the only worm I have come across that is that destructive.

I also bought something on line that had millions of nematodes that I would water into my soil to kill off the worms. The wire worm is a major problem to deal with. I am so happy we do not have them in numbers at our present garden.

The adult click beetle, go to Google Image to view the picture, when disturbed, actually jumps into the air and clicks. I destroy every one I encounter.

After writing all of the above, I now have come to the conclusion that you have radish root maggots.


LOL. Well, you got a personal lesson on the wire worms as a bonus.
Try the potato for the radish maggot and also where you had your radish bed. Dig up the potato every couple of days and pull out the worms and re plant the potato in a different hole. The literature gives you the option to
use Diazinon in your soil and rotate your radish beds each year. I dislike putting pesticides in my soil. I would go on a Google search and see if you can't come up with a biological cure for the maggot. Here is one.

Root Maggots in Radishes - Garden Clinic Forum - GardenWeb

Good Luck
Joanne (PathaJ@aol.com)

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