It is the most destructive nematode pest of turf grass, and it also attacks a wide range of fruit, vegetable, and fiber crops such as citrus, cotton, ornamentals, and forage.

Female: The vulva is a transverse slit and the vulval lips do not protrude into the vagina which generally has an opposing pair of sclerotized pieces in the lateral view.

The nematode has been reported in all the southeastern gulf states and additionally in Kansas, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Connecticut and Arkansas (Robbins and Barker, 1974).

Crop rotation is generally viewed as economically prohibitive due to the pests' wide host range.

Beans, carrots, celery, sweet corn, cowpea, eggplant, onion*, pea, citrus*, strawberry*, cabbage*, cantaloupe, cauliflower, endive, lettuce, tomato, turnip, okra*, cucumber*, snap bean, squash, pepper, sweet potato*, potato.

Use of poor or non-host cover crops within the rotation sequence may in some cases offer an effective approach to nematode control.

Four leguminous cover crops adaptable for managing soil populations of sting or root-knot nematode include Iron Clay cowpea (Vigna unguiculata cv.

'Iron Clay'), sunn hemp (Crotalaria juncea), hairy indigo (Indigofena hirsuta) and American joint vetch (Aeschynomene americana).

Sorghum is also a popular cover crop restoring large amounts of soil organic matter, but is a good host for sting nematode but not root-knot.

Most of the small grains commonly used as winter cover crops in central and north Florida, such as rye, barley, wheat, or oats, can support limited reproduction of root-knot nematodes.

Tobacco, watermelon*, asparagus, hot pepper, sunn hemp, hairy indigo, Crotalaria, velvet bean*, Bidens, horseweed, buckhorn plantain, pokeweed, sandbur, cocklebur*, jimson weed, sorrel, wild garlic, Jerusalem oak.