cutworm

Reader's Digest 10月号の記事 "Extraordinary Uses for Ordinary Things" から引用します。

REPEL INSECTS: Scatter a border of ashes from your fireplace around your garden to deter cutworms, slugs, and snails--ash sticks to their bodies and draws moisture our of them. Also sprinkle small amounts over garden plants to manage infestations of soft-bodied insects.
"cutworms" は植物の根あるいは葉を食べる害虫の様ですがどんな昆虫でしょうか？

・Oxford English Dictionary: A moth caterpillar that lives in the upper layers of the soil and eats through the stems of young plants at ground level.: The product works as either a preventive or curative control for fire ants, mole crickets, sod webworms, cutworms, armyworms and chinch bugs.
・Collins Dictionary: any of a number of soil-dwelling caterpillars (family Noctuidae) that feed on young plants of cabbage, corn, etc., cutting them off at ground level
今年の２月まで区民農園を借りて野菜を栽培していた経験からすると "cutworms" はヨトウムシを指すようです。