Tobacco Stalk Cutting: Effect on Insect Populations

Populations of the tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta (L.); tobacco budworm, Heliothis virescens (F.); and tobacco flea beetle, Epitrix hirtipennis (Melsheimer), were reduced, and less damage was done to tobacco plants when tobacco stalks were removed soon after harvest in a 113-square-mile experimental tobacco-growing area near Florence, South Carolina, from 1963 to 1967. Reductions in insect populations and plant damage decreased with increasing distance from the center of the experimental area.