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Old 03-01-2010, 10:34 PM
thistlesifter thistlesifter is offline
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Kevin,
I have had the borer from weevils in Blue Glow and Blue Flame. The pest killed one double headed prize 3 year old BG. I had just missed it entirely. We had borer in another potted BG and I was able to exterminate them there and in another bedded BF.

Since then I've watched all agaves carefully. I've grown Agaves here in Bonsall for 26 years. and had not been infested with them prior to the invasion in the 3 plants starting about 2 years ago. I've grown many dozens of agave taxa in the 25 years here including an old Attenuata X shawii hybrid that Paul Hutchison sold over 30 years ago at Tropic World. That shawii hybrid has never had the borer.

BTW, I did have a borinsect in an eight-foot Tricho I got at Dave Grigsby's haul away sale in 1987 (I think it was). Dave showed me how to get rid of it. I don't know if that borer was the same as the Agave beetle's larvae (borer).

Nasty looking little grubs and they are very tough like tough rubber. They look just like the ones that somehow end up in cheap tequilla or mescal bottles..HE HE HE!

They are anything but funny when you find them in a pile under a coreless/rootless Prize BG Agave! They pool under the rotting plant carcass and metamorphize into flying insects, probably small moths..

Bob Weeks
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