A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum Pole beans being cut

My pole beans are about 5" tall. Each morning I come out an find one or two healthy plants cut off cleanly about an inch from the ground. The plant is not eaten, its just lying there cut off. On several other plants, there are leaves half eaten - but still on the stem. The only bugs in the vicinity are one or two very tiny ants. My garden does have a slug problem. Would slugs do this?

If yes, aside from the "beer in a pan" approach (I have 60' of beans!), what other organic options are there?

If not slugs -- what??

(Can never reach my local ag extension)

mjw: Asking the moderators to move this to the pest forum. Maybe more folks will see it there.

I've been trying to think what this might be & am clueless. Do you see teeth marks on the stems? Could you take a closeup picture & post it?

Don't know how to post photo. Tried "drag & drop" but didn't work.

From my own searches, possibly a cut worm?

A clean cut stem sounds like a cutworm. You could cut a cardboard roller from the inside of a papertowel roll or a toilet paper and then slice it diagonally so that you can place it around the stem at soil level, a one inch section is fine. A bit of ash around the base of the plant might be a good deterrent too.

Thanks. I can give the papertowel roll a try. I hope I don't lose many while collecting rolls. I have over 40' of beans. No access to ashes. I'd try some diatomaceous earth but the instructions say it's only effective if kept dry. It has rained here every day for the past 2 weeks and the forcast is the same for at least another week.

Luckily, cutworms do their thing and move on, plus they only eat young, tender stems, so the problem eventually goes away. Hopefully you won't get much damage.

Sounds like you & Dave figured out the problem. As for the photos, there is a post here somewhere that tells you how to do it. Basically you need to upload your photos to Photobucket, then copy & paste the "direct" link.

Ok, signed w/photobucket. I'll try to add photo now.

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Think I got it. Thanks.