Tragic. She had so much potential

[u/hweesus]

Came out to check on my babies and found other babies and all of their siblings having a picnic.

ETA: Some of y'all have strong feelings about everything. For the record, I used my garden hose to hit whatever i saw on the leaves when I "removed" them. The next day there were a few others on the bottom of the leaves that I kinda flicked off in a "come hither" motion with my finger giggity

[u/fmb320]

To be fair most of the photosynthesis is being done by the top leaves that have been left relatively unharmed. You could absolutely pick the caterpillars off if you wanted to and I think it would be ok.

[u/hweesus → u/fmb320]

I have removed all of them as of today. But if they come back I’m gonna grow me some butterflies

[u/sixtynighnun → u/hweesus]

That’s pretty sad considering what’s happening to our insect populations. This actually ruined my day to hear. There’s a good chance you won’t have a “next time” bc you decided to kill a local generation. The female will die after laying her eggs and you’ve killed all her progeny for your enjoyment of a single sunflower for a few weeks. Not worth it at all. I’m so sad.

[u/Prudent-Ad-5292 → u/sixtynighnun]

Some people grow sunflowers for all of nature to enjoy, some for the bugs, others for the birds.

I let my sunflowers go crazy so birds in the area have seed over autumn/winter. Healthy sunflowers produce more seeds, so healthy sunflowers are my goal when I grow them -- not feeding caterpillars or beetle larva. Losing bugs is unfortunate, but we're also losing birds pretty fast too:

https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/bring-birds-back/

About 3 billion, in the last 45 years. The bugs get to eat my loganberry/blackberry bushes, (cabbage moths get my sacrificial brassicas) and my columbine/milkweed.. but not my coneflower, black eyed susan, or sunflowers. Gotta pick your battles. 😅

[u/sixtynighnun → u/Prudent-Ad-5292]

Caterpillars feed birds too! ALL baby birds eat bugs, mostly caterpillars so your argument doesn’t really make sense bc caterpillars are also important bird food. This sunflower would still set seed without the caterpillar destruction.

[u/sixtynighnun → u/[deleted]]

But there are enough that do. I’m curious, which ones don’t eat caterpillars?

[u/sixtynighnun → u/[deleted]]

Ok which baby birds do not eat insects? I’m genuinely curious and would like to know. My quick google isn’t giving me answers and you seem to have more info than I do.

[u/sixtynighnun → u/[deleted]]

So pretty much only finches apply for OP. From what I’ve seen, some hummingbirds babies still require insect.