These pests are a slow and steady killer of agaves
What is an agave snout weevil ( Scyphophorus acupunctatus ) you necessitate ? We ask the same affair a few months ago when we observe one of our American C plant life ( Agave americana , Zones 8–10 ) search peculiarly droop around the base . We were reasonably raw to Arizona and had never encountered the agave snout weevil over all our old age in Colorado . small did we cognise that this tiny terror is well known in the Southwest , infamous for the damage it can make to a beautiful , mature landscape . Is your yard at risk ? Here ’s what we have learned so far about these dastardly little devils .
When I ( Laurel ) was growing up , Mom ( Sheila ) tried her best to pass along her passion for bugs . She even had a collection of insects , well bear on in jewellery boxes . So we will be the first to allow in that these weevils are actually a second cute , with their elephant - like snouts . They are dark-brown - smutty in color and are on the smaller side , about half an in in duration .
The trouble for gardeners come when a female agave snout weevil enters the base of a plant to lie down her orchis . These eggs hatch into grubs , which will feed on the core of the agave , finally deteriorating the plant beyond fixture and kill it .
Although agave snout weevil targets multiple coinage of American aloe , the American 100 plant is the most susceptible , as we experienced in our yard . Many master gardeners in the Southwest concur that the larger agave species seem to be more at risk than the smaller metal money . One cold - stout variety that is less susceptible to damage is Parry ’s agave ( Agave parryi , Zones 7–10 ) ; it has harder leaves that seem to discourage the weevils .
After give away the plague , we require to fancy out if there was a agency to write the damaged industrial plant . We chop-chop discovered that we could n’t . Our next challenge was to see if we could prevent weevils from infesting the many other agave in our yard . After much enquiry we decided on a course of action . The first step was to remove the infected plant , which was a bummer , but necessary to forestall the weevil from disperse . The next stair was to notice an constituent insecticidal soap to enforce to that area of the garden , with the hope that it would stamp out any remain larvae before they made their agency to neighboring American aloe . Another important tip we learned is to never imbed whelp from infested century plant , as they can deport the egg .
Unfortunately , being on a incessant looking - out for agave snout weevils is now part of our weekly bit , but luckily we only lost one plant to them . Now that we are inform , we can be proactive in preventing them from invading any of our other agaves . We care the same luck to you and your agaves .
Sheila Schultz and Laurel Startzel are a female parent - girl duo who founded Denver Dirty young lady Container Gardening while living in Denver , Colorado and have continued their patronage since moving to Tucson , Arizona .
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Agave snout weevils are tiny, but they can cause a lot of damage. Photo: courtesy of Nanosanchez/commons.wikimedia.org, under theCreative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This plant has been damaged beyond repair by agave snout weevil grubs. Photo: Lokibaho/istockphoto.com.
