How to treat cabbage against caterpillars in order to prevent their invasion or promptly expel them when detected? There are many ways, among which folk remedies remain no less effective. With timely use of a properly prepared composition, the problem can be easily dealt with.
Pest Information
Cabbage beds often become habitat for white cabbage. She lays eggs on cabbage leaves. After a couple of days, a large number of caterpillars emerge from the eggs, destroying the cabbage. The color of the caterpillar is gray-green, with yellow stripes and black dots.The first days, when the caterpillars are still small, they damage only the top layer of leaves. As soon as their size reaches approximately 4 cm, the head of cabbage itself is eaten.
Cabbage caterpillars live on average just under a month. Then they pupate and turn into butterflies. The cycle repeats itself again. If you don’t start fighting the pest, up to five generations of these insects can change over the summer. Therefore, when getting rid of butterflies, you can be sure that the caterpillars will not eat the crop. Cabbage is not only affected by cabbage caterpillars. The turnip, like the white one, has white wings, but is half the size. The caterpillars are green with yellow stripes. The caterpillar eats not only the leaves, but also the head of cabbage itself.
Cabbage cutworm caterpillars are also dangerous for cabbage. Butterflies are small in size, brown-gray in color. Green caterpillars are also small in size. At night, they eat leaves, forming holes in them. During the daytime they sleep inside the stalk. The cabbage moth is small in size, reaching approximately 7 mm. The insect is gray-brown in color with light stripes. Small green caterpillars that appear feed on the sap of the plant and hide on the inside of the leaf.
After 3-4 weeks, the caterpillars pupate, turn into butterflies and become ready to hatch the next generation.
Green caterpillars manage to ruin the entire crop without intervention. The heads of cabbage are formed small or completely wither and rot. It is better to engage in prevention than to waste time and effort on treatment.
Prevention measures
There is a simple but proven way to get rid of caterpillars on cabbage. The pest does not like pungent and spicy smells, therefore, experienced gardeners plant celery, parsley, cilantro, and basil near cabbage beds.The smells of flowers such as marigolds and calendula repel insects from cabbage. While repelling some insects, their scent attracts the attention of other insects that feed on the caterpillars. This prevention option is one of the effective methods.
What to do to prevent insect attacks? In addition to choosing neighbors in the garden, they fight cabbage in other ways:
- prevent the growth of weeds and carry out weeding in a timely manner;
- it is necessary to remove the tops of the previous harvest and pulled out weeds from the beds;
- periodically inspect the vegetable crop; leaves should also be examined from the inside;
- When pests are detected, they are removed from the beds and destroyed.
Not all pests can be collected by hand. For example, cabbage moth caterpillars begin active activity only at night. During the day they carefully hide at the base of the stalk. How to protect cabbage from the spread of pests? In this case, wasps or ants will come to the rescue, as they feed on larvae and caterpillars. To attract them, cabbage beds can be watered with sweet syrup.
Herbal Ingredients
What folk remedies can be used to treat cabbage against caterpillars? There are many proven and effective means used by experienced gardeners. You can scare away butterflies with a decoction based on hot pepper. Pepper, in the amount of 1 kg, is crushed and poured with boiling water (10 liters). After two days of infusion, the broth must be strained. The solution is diluted with water before use. Add 150 ml of decoction to 10 liters of water. “Once we fought caterpillars with a bitter decoction of peppers. The recipe worked quickly. To increase efficiency, I add 40 g of crushed soap.”This will allow the solution to remain on the cabbage leaves for a longer period.
You can protect cabbage beds with a decoction prepared from hot peppers. The recipe requires 100 g of dry peppers per liter of water. The pods are boiled in water for two hours. The resulting solution is diluted with water. The fight may be accompanied by decoctions based on burdock, nettle, onion peel or chamomile. They water the beds. In addition to repelling insects, herbal infusions will help replenish the lack of microelements.
If caterpillars appear, you can use burdock leaves. They are finely chopped, filled with water and left to infuse for three days. Before watering, dilute with water. Plants should be sprayed against butterflies during their flight and when caterpillars emerge from eggs. Folk remedies cannot do without onion peels. It is poured with boiling water. After a couple of hours of infusion, soap shavings are added. Water or spray the plants with the resulting solution.
You can pour in the onion peel along with the onion itself, previously finely chopped. It is enough to insist for a day. Before spraying the plants, the infusion must be filtered. You can destroy the caterpillar with another infusion. Take tomato leaves and tops, wormwood and finely chop. The resulting green mixture is poured with water, and after a day the infusion will be ready for use.
You can water the cabbage with an infusion based on tomato tops and leaves without wormwood. Chopped greens are poured with boiling water for 4 hours. Then bring to a boil again and cook for 3 hours. The resulting infusion is filtered and diluted in a 1:2 ratio before watering. Cabbage should be processed during the period when the caterpillars appear.
You can treat cabbage with an infusion based on garlic.Chopped garlic cloves are poured with water and left for a week. To spray, you need to take 25 ml of infusion and dilute it in 10 liters of water. All these recipes will help protect against insect infestations, get rid of caterpillars and stop their further spread.
Other compositions of folk remedies
Many gardeners use folk remedies to treat cabbage against caterpillars. All compositions contain natural ingredients and do not harm the culture. You can treat cabbage against whiteflies with a vinegar solution. A glass of the main component is diluted in 10 liters of water, 60 g of salt and 50 ml of ammonia are added. “We have been fighting insects with this product for a long time. Only the resulting solution should be sprayed on the cabbage; you cannot water it at the root.” For preventive purposes, you can spray cabbage several times a season.
How to deal with whiteflies on cabbage, wood ash has proven itself well. You can simply sprinkle it on the soil around each seedling, or make a decoction. Wood ash is poured with water (1 liter of water per 100 g of ash), brought to a boil and boiled for 20 minutes. After this it is left to cool. Advice from gardeners: “I have been spraying cabbage with a decoction of ash for every year. Before use, I add water, bringing the volume to 10 liters.”
An infusion of ash will help against whiteflies. Wood ash is poured with water and left to infuse for two days. Dissolve 40 g of laundry soap crushed with a grater in the resulting composition. A natural remedy such as tobacco dust will save you; it drives away many pests and helps you cope with the cutworm.
You can simply sprinkle the mixture onto the cabbage beds, but there are recipes for preparing a decoction and infusion. To obtain an infusion, infuse 50 g of tobacco dust in a liter of water for 24 hours.For the decoction, you need to take 100 g of tobacco dust, add water (10 l) and boil for half an hour. Then leave to infuse for a day, strain and dilute with water, adding soap.
You can poison caterpillars and butterflies with mustard. For infusion you will need mustard powder in the amount of 10 g. Infuse in a liter of water for two days. Before spraying the vegetable crop, the solution is diluted with water in a ratio of 1:5. Protection is also carried out with infusion. Mustard (approximately 90 g) is poured with a liter of water and stirred thoroughly. You need to insist for three days in a closed container.
Before spraying the cabbage, filter the solution, dilute it with water in a ratio of 1:20 and add 40 g of crushed laundry soap.
Harmless ready-made formulations
You can also poison caterpillars using purchased drugs. Biological products without chemicals are produced on the basis of living bacteria and fungi. These drugs are not harmful to humans or animals. Accumulating in the soil, they create a favorable environment for the development of any vegetable crop. Treated vegetable plantings are cleared of pests after 6 hours using the following means:
- Verticillin is used against whites;
- if cabbage flies appear, Nemabact will help;
- To get rid of caterpillars, the drug Actofit and Avertin are often used.
You cannot use biological products and chemicals at the same time. Living bacteria die under the influence of chemical components, and the result will not be achieved.
