Anyone tried UV darklight to spot insects, etc. ?

[Toddy]

I've found four adult vine weevils this week.
Normally I'm of the mind that everything has a right to live, except clegs (horseflies) but after finding decimated plants last year I now include the pestilent vine weevil, and I crush them when spotted.

I was reading on the BBC gardening website that, and I quote,

"....was exploiting a little-known fact that these and many other strange critters fluoresce under ultraviolet light. Using a small hand-held UV dark-light lantern he was creeping about the pavements examining fence posts and peering over garden walls....."
from this site
http://blog.gardenersworld.com/2009/04/08/vine-weevils/

Anyone tried this ? and if so, what else shows up ?

cheers,
Toddy

 

[spiritwalker]

only really seen it done with scorpions on the south coast but it sounds like an interesting experiment i love my bugs

 

[Toddy]

I did discover that when I opened up the plant pots of the suffering plants and spread out the soil that the robins loved to gorge on the fat vine weevil grubs Kind of put me off even thinking of using the pesticide tbh. I'll just do a little extra work instead.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Harvestman]

Using UV to find scorpions is a standard collecting technique. Wasn't aware it worked on other stuff though. Thanks for the notice.

 

[Rob]

Only when I have been checking that there was nothing wanting to spend the night in my accomodation ;-)