Jerusalem artichoke vs. pests

VermontCathy

I see claims that Jerusalem artichoke has no natural enemies, and can produce a lot of food tubers with little issue.

This has not been the case for me. I now wonder if the writers who report no pests on Jerusalem artichoke (also known as sunchoke) were planting it outside its wild range.

In the past, most of my sunchoke bulbs were eaten, probably by a small mammal such as a vole. I solved that problem by planting the one surviving bulb inside the garden fence (but outside of the garden beds, as sunchoke is invasive).

Now I see several new sunchoke shoots sprouting up near the spot where the sunchoke grew last year. While the plants look basically healthy, I've already found two instances where some type of insect glued several leaves together to make a protected shelter for a small, curled up worm

I've destroyed the insect shelters, but I'm really scratching my head about this. I've never found this type of insect shelter elsewhere in the garden.

Sunchoke appears to sit somewhere between "invasive, hard to control" and "popular with numerous creatures".

Lisa K

@VermontCathy I have also had my Sunchokes eaten by small mammals such as rats and squirrels.