Jatydid studied their two raised flowerbeds dedicated to kwineberries. The bushes were flourishing in one. Deep green leaves, heavy hanging fruit clusters, and standing tall, the plant on the left was looking great compared to the leaning, hard to find mini fruit clusters, and pale yellow leaves from the bushes on the right.
Studying their notes, which their new intern Ketzest was holding up for them, Jatydid was quickly reminded these two flowerbeds were part of an experiment. The bed on the left had been tediously shifted through, removing insects and their eggs a few times over the weeks. Pulling back a little of the soil showed strong, long roots.
The bed on the right wasn't looking good above or below the soil. Doing a little digging revealed the roots were thing and stringy, or those with a larger diameter had holes bored all the way through.
Jatydid found one of the hungry larva, halfway into a root; its pale squishy body wiggling as it chomped away. “Ketzest, I’m going to need some tweezers.”
“Yes boss.” The intern hadn’t been Jatydid’s choice, but the government had a big plan to increase the number of Qwortarians growing food and that meant getting young Qwortarians interested. Throwing around money in an economy struggling to recover was a good way to do that. So Jatydid, reluctantly agreed to take an intern on. Ketzest had the second best grades, and both they and Jatydid were getting some of that money for the arrangement.
Taking the tweezers from Ketzest, Jatydid lowered their eye stalk to get a closer look at the burrowing larva. "Now, we can say for sure," Jatydid held up the wriggling creature, "kwineberry plants need to stay bug free." The intern jotted a few things down and then grabbed a shovel, a rake, another set of tweezers, and a pail. Jatydid nodded. "Get the grubs. Leave the plants, we'll see if they can recover or if they are doomed."
"Yes boss." The intern got to work sifting through the soil and plucking out the bugs.
Word count: 343
