worms
 

My onions looked terrible about a month back and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with them. Leaves were drooping more than normal and turning brown way too early in the season. Finally I noticed some holes in the leaves and pulled one off and ripped it open to find some type of brown caterpillar like and army worm inside the stems. I used Dipel and even Sevin and it slowed down the damage but for most it was just too late so I will end up with some onions but almost all of them were damaged. I don't think the poison got to most of the worms since they were inside the leaves. I have been growing onions for decades and never saw anything like this before. To make matters worse the damaged onions developed some type of downy or powdery mildew to go along with the worm problems. As a result the onions started dying back way early so my onion supple if any will be mostly small onions.

Bill

This is not your same problem but about 4 years ago our area was hit by a new pest of onions, garlic and leeks. It is called the Alium Leaf Miner and it is a small fly that lays eggs on Aliums. They develop into maggots aka worms inside of the leaves and they work their way into the bulbs.

After decades of onions being a care free crop, I quit growing them.

I have pulled a few of the onions up and cut them to check to see if the worms affected the bulbs but so far no indication other than much smaller bulbs than usual.

Bill