Features of the fight against cabbage scoop in the garden

Growing crops on your own plot is a pleasant and useful business, but you must constantly save vegetables from various pests. One of the most common is the cabbage scoop, which can appear in potato, tomato and cabbage beds.

What is this pest?

A butterfly with large wings and a gray-brown coloration is called a cabbage scoop. The edges of the wings are serrated, the closer to the edging, the darker their color becomes.

Insects show their activity in the dark, while during the day, as a rule, they rest. The cabbage scoop is extremely fertile and is capable of breeding two or three offspring in just a season. The number of eggs laid depends on the area where the insects live. For example, if only 1 brood of a new generation can grow in the cool climate of the northern regions, then in the southern latitudes, moth infestations most often occur.

It is the cabbage scoop caterpillar that is the key problem for gardeners. Eggs are laid on the inside of the cabbage leaf, for this reason it is difficult to notice the appearance of the pest.

The moth caterpillars are greenish or brown with spots on the back. They hibernate, buried in the soil, making moves up to 10 cm deep. They like cabbage most of all, but they can also eat other crops: potatoes, radishes, buckwheat, etc.

Harm to cabbage

Adult butterflies are not capable of causing significant harm, so the first thing to be dealt with is the caterpillars, which spoil almost all the vegetables in the garden.

Caterpillars of the cabbage scoop need to constantly feed during adulthood, absorbing the soil in large quantities. For this reason, the damage they do is enormous. The main food for insects is cabbage leaves, but in some cases the larvae penetrate the head of cabbage, thereby destroying the vegetable from the inside.

Eating leaves, caterpillars can make large holes or even leave only a "skeleton" of thick veins. If the larvae were able to get inside, then the vegetable begins to become contaminated with excrement, which provokes a chemical reaction and leads to the final spoilage of the cabbage.

Small holes left by young caterpillars when they penetrate the center of the fruit are almost invisible - it is because of this that the scoop is considered the most dangerous cabbage pest. Once in the head of cabbage, the caterpillar penetrates the stalk and, as the vegetable grows, eats the entire inner part of the fruit. As a result, some cabbage heads look fresh and whole, but they have cavities inside.

Advice

It is difficult to get rid of the pest, it is required to start the fight against the cabbage scoop in advance and continue to process the beds throughout the entire period while the vegetable is growing.

How to get rid of a cabbage scoop?

In order to eliminate the caterpillars of the cabbage scoop, you need to start acting as soon as possible, since this insect reproduces very quickly.

The most appropriate option would be to apply preventive measures to prevent the spread of caterpillars in the garden in advance.

• Predatory mites can be used. This method is absolutely safe and brings good results in the fight against the cabbage scoop. Ticks can be found freely available in specialized stores. However, they are quite expensive, so you will have to resort to other methods if the pests were able to settle in large areas.
• Manual collection of caterpillars.This is the simplest control measure that allows you to get rid of insects, however, it will not be able to help completely get rid of them, since most of the caterpillars are hiding among the leaves and in the ground. You should start harvesting in the evening, since it is after the heat has subsided that the caterpillars begin to leave their shelters and go in search of food. Gloves can be used as personal protective equipment.
• Chemical treatment. The use of chemically active substances will allow the processing of any area. Preparations from the category of pyrethroids, for example, ISS, are recognized as effective agents suitable for combating the cabbage scoop.

Together with pyrethroids, it is possible to use organophosphate-type agents, they show not such good results, but at the same time they are not able to poison plants and soil with toxins. The cabbage should be sprayed with a solution prepared according to the factory recipe. The best time to start treatment is in the evening, and it is desirable that the time is dry, since the product can very quickly be washed off the leaves and stems with rainwater. Remember that this procedure should be repeated once a week, since the formation of broods of larvae of caterpillars occurs at different times and, getting rid of one population, you will not be able to harm a new one that has not yet hatched.

It is almost impossible to completely prevent the invasion of the cabbage scoop into the garden, but if you approach the process of growing vegetable crops correctly and provide them with protection in time, you will be able to minimize the risk of mass spread of various types of pests in the garden.