Grape leaf skeletonizers are voracious little caterpillars that do exactly what you might infer from their name. They are the larvae of an inconspicuous little blue-black moth that lays its eggs in clusters on the undersides of grape leaves, and start munching away as soon as they hatch. If you notice your grape leaves beginning to look like the ones in the picture on the right, look on the undersides of the affected leaves for tiny black-and-yellow striped caterpillars.
The best control we've found is Thuricide, a biological control agent containing live bacteria which will kill caterpillars, and only caterpillars. Some gardeners report successfully controlling them by hand-picking, but we found that very time-consuming as well as ineffective.
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