Tomato plants are pretty sensitive and due to excess water and nutrients in the fruits as well as plants, they are prone to a wide range of worms and other pests that might cause you to have a certain number of problems. If you are seeing hornworms on your tomato plants, you will need to get rid of them to ensure that you can get the perfect experience with them and keep the plants healthy at the same time. So, a few things that you will need to know about how to prevent the hornworms on your tomato plants are mentioned below.
How to Prevent Hornworms on Tomato Plants?
Is it Possible?
Yes, it is quite possible to prevent the hornworms on your tomato plants in the first place. While it might be difficult for you to get rid of them after the infestation on the plants, it is relatively a lot easier to take preventive measures so they cannot attack your plants in the first place. A few things that you will need to do in order to make sure that your plants are safe from the hornworms are:
1. Tilling the Soil
Tilling the soil is one of the best ways to keep your tomato plants safe from any infestation attack. It will basically rotate the soil and kill all the larvae as well that might be on the soil and that will be the perfect thing for you to avoid getting these hornworms on your tomato plants to cause any damage. Just make sure that you are not damaging the roots while tilling the soil around your tomato plants and that will do the trick for you.
2. Crop Rotation
Another thing that you can try out is crop rotation. Crop rotation is simply the best way to keep hornworms away from the tomato plants. That’s because they mostly attack the tomato plants only. You can try planting some other crop such as potatoes on the same land in the next season. That will automatically kill all the larvae and all the hornworms as well. This will prevent them from affecting any crops in the first place.
3. Natural Insecticides
There are also some natural insecticides that you can find around the gardening stores. They can be the perfect thing that you are going to need. All you will need to do is get the right insecticide that is natural. This is so it won’t cause any adverse effects on the fruits and plants’ health. Then just spray it around the plant. That will be killing all such hornworms in an optimal manner and you can have perfectly healthy plants and fruits.
4. Use Some Mulch
The larvae of hornworms are on the soil and you can get rid of the larvae by covering the grown with some plastic mulch. That will help you to get rid of the larvae perfectly. Then, they will not grow into hornworms. This means that they won’t cause any problems with the fruits or plants later and your plants will be safe.