Hello everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today we are talking about leaf miners. So leaf miners

are kind of a weird pest. They're pretty annoying to deal with with but fortunately they're very easy to

spot because of the way that they attack a plant. So today's show that's what we're

talking about. First of all what are these guys? Basically there are thousands of

different fly or moth larva that are considered to be leaf miners. So

each variety typically has its own favored plant type and most of these are from the

Lepidoptera which is the mau family the sawfly family or the fly family the

diphterra family.

So, what is the life cycle?

We always, always talk about the life cycle of pests

here on the Epic Gardening Show,

because if you understand that and you understand how to combat them in each stage of their life cycle,

then you stand a really good chance at eliminating them completely.

So, although there are many different species, the life cycle is basically the same for most leaf miners.

So an adult-mated female is going to lay her eggs on or inside a leaf surface.

So if it's inside, this is done with the female's ovipositor, kind of a

crazy science fiction sounding organ that that animal has and it pierces through the leaf skin to inject the egg

sack. So it's crazy. This actually might create a small raised spot on the

leaf surface and one female can lay up to 250 eggs.

So if you don't fix that, then boom,

you have a potential 250 larva coming out, right?

In 10 days or less, those eggs begin hatching

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