It depends. The moths that lay their eggs, which become budworms, seem to like California, particularly Southern California.
Even the more experienced Cali growers on this site have issues with them. If you've read this thread you can see there are several approaches to trying to prevent them - which should presumably lower the odds of getting them.
I'm not sure about other geographical areas.
Long time grower, first time poster (actually a former long time poster on OG back in the day, RIP OG...).
I live in Maryland and we get them here, whether they are the same species of moth/larva or not, I dunno. From my experience, the moths seem to like to lay their eggs on more Indica heavy plants and not so much on Sativas.
One year, we had some c99's growing next to some Sweettooth #3 (SoL strain). The c99's had no moth damage whatsoever while the sweettooths were decimated. We probably lost a quarter of the ST#3 harvest from mold/rot caused by the worms. This has held true for the most part, though we've had some odd balls; Skunk, for example, strains don't seem to get hit at all.
Over the past few years though, we've been spraying the ground with insecticide, especially towards the end of July and beginning of August when you really see the moths jumping up from the ground. The first couple years, the problem wasn't too bad at all and last year we had none at all. But, last winter, we did have a deep ground freeze where temps averaged about 25 degrees during the day for about a month, which could have something to do with how many hatch during mid-late summer.
One last thing, as been probably said in this thread, look at your plants every day and pick the damaged bud out as soon as possible. The rot and mold these guys cause spreads and you'll lose a cola before you know it.
