Host Plants - Tobacco, cotton, and soybeans are the only cultivated crop hosts of the tobacco budworm in North Carolina. The corn earworm feeds on at least 16 cultivated plants. The tobacco budworm does not infest corn, but both species are found on cotton and soybeans. Wild hosts of the tobacco budworm include deergrass and toadflax. Both species feed on tobacco leaves, but such feeding causes little appreciable damage.
Damage is most serious when feeding is in the vegetative bud of the plant.
The larvae often cause distorted leaves by feeding upon the tips of the leaves in the developing bud. Large holes develop from earlier feeding as the leaf tissue expands. Plants prematurely topped by budworm feeding produce profuse sucker growth. Both species of caterpillars may also bore in stalks or midribs. Tobacco budworm adults emerge in North Carolina from late April to mid-May.