THE POTATO GRUB.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 436, 3 February 1912, Page 6

THE POTATO GRUB.

The potato grub, which is proving to be so deadly to the crops in North Otago, has already made its appearance in Canterbury. It has been traced by Mr Charles Barnett, a wellknown local nurseryman, from Christchurch right through North Canterbury to the Amuri district, and if no preventive or cure for the pest is at once discovered it will, he says, prove in a very few weeks to be equally as detructive to the Canterbury crops. The grub, he says, is generally opposed to be the deposit of a moth, but after a careful search has been found to be the product of a small beetle much resembling the well - known grasa grub beetle, but only about an eighth of the size. This beetle follows the crop after it has been exposed to the air, depositing its eggs about the sacks or on the potato. The maggot, or grub, from these eggs then enters the tuber and completely riddles it with small holes, develops in it to about half a inch long, then, emerging from the tuber, weaves a small cocoon on the outside of the sacks, principally down the seams, where it passes the chrysalis stage and again returns to beetle form, which deposits an unknown quantity of eggs. So far no trace of the grub has been found in tubers under the ground, but when they have eebn exposed on the top of the ground or in the sacks or a few days the pest has made its appearance. Up to the present nothing has been found to destroy the grub itself, though Mr Barnett has tried various strong solutions wihoutt the slightest effect.