I've been gardening for decades and growing tomatoes for most of that. I have learned to go hunting for tomato hornworms with a blacklight.

For weeks now I have found frass, and no worms. This morning he finally showed himself.

I have never encountered this worm on my plants before. Can anyone identify it? Google images suggests a cutworm, but we are well past the seedling stage, so I am not sure.

The second photo is a phenomenon I have never seen - a cut into the stem with what looks disturbingly like eggs? Please tell me that is not what that is...

Thanks all!

@JosephineRose This looks to me like a Tomato moth caterpillar (Lacanobia oleracea) or the beet armyworm (Spodoptera exigua). I don't know if they lay their eggs in holes like that or not but I find that image disturbing.

Could this be tomato fruitworm? That's what google brought up for laying eggs in tomato stems.
The pic of the caterpillar does look like it.
One thing for sure, you want to dispatch those eggs before they hatch! Yikes....

It's a tomato fruit worm when feeding on tomatoes, but the same as a corn ear worm. They also feed on peppers and other vegetables as well. They always exhibit great taste in their selection of food, too, by always choosing the largest and most perfect fruits to dine on.

I believe the second photo shows aerial roots beginning to emerge from the stem.

My initial thought was roots too, not sure about the worm. I'd go along with cutworm OR corn ear worm, that's pretty much what they look like, but I didn't know they doubled on tomatoes. Not much in my garden. Luckily I've never seen that many to really be a good judge. Mauve and gray, yeah, they are not much for fashion sense.

What is that little chain thing in the second photo?

Kind of depressing to go searching for worm on tomato pics and see those tomatoes all in rough shape. Not as bad as looking for blight pics, but getting there.

JRinPA wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2023 8:19 pm My initial thought was roots too, not sure about the worm. I'd go along with cutworm OR corn ear worm, that's pretty much what they look like, but I didn't know they doubled on tomatoes. Not much in my garden. Luckily I've never seen that many to really be a good judge. Mauve and gray, yeah, they are not much for fashion sense.

What is that little chain thing in the second photo?

Kind of depressing to go searching for worm on tomato pics and see those tomatoes all in rough shape. Not as bad as looking for blight pics, but getting there.

Fruit worms can become epidemic in a high tunnel.

I have met the "armyworms" family by growing a few wheats. Big ones with orange stripe on the outside of the heads; tiny ones with red and purple stripes inside the kernels of red/purple hulled emmer but not the "plain grains". In fact they were such a match for the hull colors, I took note of their amazing fashion sense. Big ones OTOH, pretty indiscriminate.
So far no takers on the tomatoes here, thank goodness.

JRinPA wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2023 8:19 pm
What is that little chain thing in the second photo?

Optical illusion - it's a woven synthetic thread from the Earthbox trellis.

It kinda does look like a chain, though. I see it now.