Mealworms in the garden info please

[Guest]

Ok I feel a bit of a plonker having to ask about mealworms, but I have never actually found naturally occuring ones before. I have just gone to dig up some yacon and each root has 2-3 meal worms in it. Is this something I should worry about? Should I take any precautions with that bit of ground with them in? Are they baddies? Everything I know about them is in regards to breeding them and feeding them to birds

Thank you as always

[Aberdeenplotter]

Did you take pics of them. You sure they are mealworm?

[fishpond]

Can we have some phots with them wearing Xmas hats?
I doubt that they are mealworms

[Guest]

Sorry no pics. I doubt I will find them tomorrow, the birds (blackbirds and robins) were about. I am never sure of anything. They were approx. 25mm long, 2-3mm thick and a sickly yellow colour with all their legs up front and they were definitely grub like and not centipedes. All tho at a 'distant glance' could be mistaken.

[Guest]

Doh - or they could have been wireworms

[Greenleaves]

That's where I would place my money NG

[Zelenina]

A quick bit of research told me that mealworms and wireworms are both beetle larvae, but from different families of beetles.

Wireworms are from the Click beetle family (Elateridae) and mealworms are from the Darkling beetle family (Tenebrionidae) Darkling beetle larvae are also called false wireworms because they look very similar to click beetle larvae.

Both those families have lots of species. Some of them, like the familiar mealworms, are mainly pests of stored food. Others eat root crops, and many others are harmless or even useful to us.

Apparently even expert entomologists find it very difficult to tell the difference between all the larvae and recognise which beetle species they belong to, so we probably wouldn't be able to either, even if you did have a photo NG, (although that mightn't stop us trying ).

I guess whichever kind they were, the methods recommended for controlling wireworms would probably work. Cultivate the ground thoroughly to let birds and frost kill them, and pick out any that you see. Rotate your crops so roots won't be growing in the same patch next time. And you could try trapping them with a buried potato on a stick as described here. Wireworm Control | Planet Natural

[seasprout]

Congratulations.... You have wireworms.