Cabbage moth: a small insect of great harmfulness

Coming from the Mediterranean, cabbage moth spread around the world after the beloved cabbage. If at first its distribution was constrained by inappropriate climatic conditions, now the struggle for existence and adaptation to changing external conditions has allowed this butterfly to penetrate into previously inaccessible regions of the planet.

Now you can meet this pest in Africa and South America. In our country, it survives even in the harsh conditions of Siberia and the Kola Peninsula. What this pest looks like, you can see the photo of the cabbage moth below.

Species biology

Description

Inconspicuous pest cabbage moth - typical butterfly, representative family of ermine moles. The gray-brown color of its wings in males is slightly darker than in females, which indicates sexual dimorphism of the species.

Reference! Sexual dimorphism in living beings - the presence of distinctive features, excluding sexual characteristics. For example, in hens and roosters it is clearly developed, while in geese and geese to a lesser extent.

The size of the butterflies is small, its wings barely reach 7-8 millimeters in length.

Development

These insects winter in the pupal stage, falling into suspended animation at a temperature of +9 degrees Celsius. At this time, they are in a cocoon attached to the bottom surface of cabbage leaves, and with them are left in the garden or thrown into a compost pit, where they winter until spring.
When the spring sun warms the air and the average daily temperature rises to 10 degrees, the years of these butterflies begin. They begin to eat and mate. A day after sexual contact, the female lays the first portion of eggs, and in her 30 days of life she is able to lay them up to three hundred pieces.

Egg-laying is located on the underside of the leaf along the veins, or on the petioles of small-leaved cruciferous crops. The maximum number of eggs in one clutch does not exceed five pieces. The egg develops rapidly, from four to seven days, then a larva appears.

A spawning larva lays a longitudinal mine along the leaf vein.

Reference! A mine is called damage to part of plants, in which pests make moves inside the tissues, leaving the layers of the epidermis intact.

After a while, up to five days, the cabbage moth caterpillars crawl out of the mines and begin to devour leaf tissue, initially damaging only its lower layer, and gnawing it as it grows. In total, the caterpillar lives up to 25 days, shedding up to four times during this time.

Each time, the larvae move from the edges to the center of the plant, last of all, reaching the head of cabbage.

In the end, the larva builds a platform on the underside of the leaf and attaches a cocoon to it, in which pupates in 3-5 days. Depending on external conditions, pupal development lasts from a week to two. In the case when this stage occurs in late autumn, the butterfly emerges next spring.

Depending on the region of residence, the whole cabbage moth makes up to six generations in the warm climate of the Caucasus or Krasnodar Territory.In more severe conditions of the North-Western region of Russia or Siberia, the number of generations is from two to three.

Harm

Damaging the leaves of cabbage and other crops, moth caterpillars doom plants to a lack of nutrition, which leads to general inhibition of the plant and a lag in its development. Moreover, the larvae of the cabbage moth feed on almost all cruciferous, including:

• white and red cabbage;
• savoy cabbage;
• broccoli;
• cauliflower;
• kohlrabi;
• turnip;
• radish;
• radish;
• daikon;
• mustard;
• canola;
• Brussels sprouts;
• and maybe he missed something else.

Farmers and agricultural enterprises suffer from cabbage moth on rapeseed and mustard crops, pests that appeared on the outskirts of the fields quickly move to their center, damaging large areas of crops.

Signs of damage

The fight against cabbage moth begins with regular monitoring of the condition of plants. By carefully inspecting your cabbage plantings, you can prevent their massive defeat by the pest. Signs that these pests have come to your garden for a snack are:

• the presence of mines on cabbage leaves;
• moves in heads of cabbage;
• holes in the leaves;
• the presence of caterpillars on plants;
• stunting of heads of cabbage.

Preventive struggle

Prophylactic against cabbage moths will allow you to spend in the future less energy to fight them. First of all, you need to remember that these butterflies fly unimportantly and can only be brought to you by the wind. Therefore, if they appeared on the site, it means that they live somewhere nearby.

Based on this, the first method against cabbage moths is the thorough cleaning and destruction of all cabbage residues in the fall.

The second effective folk remedy against cabbage moths is the destruction of all wild cruciferous crops near the site and in aisles. The fact is that often the moth flies out before the cultivated cabbage is planted, and the cabbage moth has to be fed on plants such as:

• colza
• overbig;
• hesperis;
• lunar
• shepherd’s bag.

Another effective measure to combat cabbage moths is to attract natural enemies to the site, such as:

• frogs;
• lizards;
• toads;
• birds.

Build ponds, feeding troughs, birdhouses for them on the site - everything that will help to attract them to visit you and keep them there.

In addition to such large representatives of the animal kingdom, many insect riders are enemies of the moth. To attract them to the site should be planted aromatic plants, such as:

• dill;
• celery;
• carrot;
• cilantro, or coriander;
• bow;
• root and leaf parsley;
• clover.

Healthy plants are less damaged by pests, so strengthen immunity of cabbage crops spend every two to three weeks foliar top dressing on the leaves. As nutritious fertilizers, it is desirable to use various chelated natural forms.

Fight to destroy

If the defeat began to be widespread, then it is time to connect more powerful drugs against cabbage moths.

Attention! Massive damage to plants is called when more than five caterpillars are located on one of them, or 10-15 percent of the total planting area is damaged.

Insecticides against cabbage moths are used both chemical and bacterial.

Chemical

Chemicals are best used in the early summer of butterflies, as they work best on adults and young larvae, while adult caterpillars and pupae are resistant to chemicals.

Recommended chemicals, dosage shown in grams per bucket, ten liters, water:

• karbofos - 60;
• sodium silicofluoride - 100;
• Actellik - 100;
• ambush - 80;
• ripcord - 20;
• Talkord - 80;
• Nurell - 30.

Bacterial

Bacterial drugs are internal agents. They are less dangerous for humans and domestic animals, as they act on the gastrointestinal tract of caterpillars.

Recommended bacterial preparations and their concentration:

• entobacterin-5;
• bactospein -3;
• Gomelin - 1.5;
• bitoxibacillin -1.5;
• dendrobacillin -1.5;
• dipel - 2;
• lepidocide - 1.5.

Folk

From folk remedies, it is possible to recommend a tincture of dandelions with liquid soap for better adhesion. The dosage of the drug is as follows:

• dandelion leaves - 500 grams;
• liquid soap - 20 grams;
• water - 10 liters.

It is necessary to insist this solution for three hours, then strain and spray on the basis of spending one liter of infusion per square meter of sown area.

Advice! When treating with any of the insecticides, especially carefully spray the underside of the leaves, as it is most infected with cabbage moth caterpillars.

Eyes would not look at her, but for the sake of completeness, we still add video about cabbage moth.