Hi All, can somebody tell me how to get ride of wire worms,

i went over to the plot over the weekend and dug up some potatoes, but when we cleaned them for dinner on sunday they had small brown spots all through them,

will i have this problem every year, and will i get this in other plants like carrots, parsnips, or will it be where i place my manure

Lifting all the spuds is recommended rather than leaving them til you want them.

Digging the soil and exposing them to the birds, or you can apply a biological control in August/September time, but that will be expensive

Folks say you can put a skewer through a spud(s) to attract them and then burn it when the wireworms are in there. So you could lift your spuds but leave a few as bait

Do they have holes Windy? If not, just sounds like the potatoes are a bit scabby. That is a problem with alkaline soil and is only cosmetic. Adding more organic matter at planting time is the only real way to prevent it.

Re: wire worm. How long have you had the plot? Wire worm diminishes over a four year period as the click beetle lays its eggs on grass land and the larvae spend four years in the soil (thus the dimishing over four years if you start of with a grassy plot). If the paths on the allotment are grassy, then I assume there will always be a minor problem with them as some will migrate from the grassy areas onto the plot but it should be on the same scale as the first year that the plot is turned over.

Hope that makes sense.

hi ady, yes they all have holes (the potatoes i've dug up so far) i'll have to dig up the rest now and have a look at them,
i've had the plot for around 2 and a half yrs now,
when i got the plot it hasn't been work for years, it had and still has loads of cough grass, all over the plot, which get dug out as good as i can.
but with my back problem i cant do much digging, and have to rely on my son to help when he can, when he's not working,
i have read that the more the soil is dug the wire worms disapear, over time,
with in my crop rotation this section is a new plot and was double dug this year for potatoe, first time i tried them on my plot, so i can understand why i have them now,
as for paths being grass, yes they are, and yes they have a problem,

I know you have a rotovator and supposedly rotovating regularly over a three month period is supposed to see off couch grass too - it does not like being constantly cultivated. it sees off a fair amount of worms too but they should not take too long to recover.