SOcal USA, Outdoor crop is getting just thrashed. The catipillars/worms are wreaking havoc and eating ALL the best bud and shitting in the rest. Have been hand picking them off, but they can do one heck of a lot of damage before I can spot and moosh them. They bury them selves deep inside the upper part of main cola's.....and I wind up busting/breaking/thrashing the cola to find and get them out.. Have got row cover sheeting over them now to prevent any further egg laying infestation...but likely to little, too late......... but what ya going to do? Have tried a corn meal dusting, and wood ash dusting and set lacewings after them....all to little avail. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I know on my cabbage plants an ocean water spray works pretty well and the plants can stand tolorate the salt content.......but does anyone know if the salt content will damamge almost ripe herbage plants? Many thanks in advance
those li'l munchers are a pain. I had quite an infestation last year. Fortunately I was over a month from harvest so I started with rotenone and pyrethrin spray and followed up with BT (Bacillus thuringiensis) The BT rocks but the worms have to eat it to work.
Thanks for the info......I am only days, a week at the most away from main harvest so went to my local garden center and asked the botonist on staff...turned out to be a very cool botonist....... also outdoor growing his own (WOW was very cool to find a fellow grower and with a PhD in plants!!!) .....directed me to Monterey Garden Spray an organic with Spinosad (soil bacteria) as the active ingrediant......he says you can harvest as short as one day after last application will no ill effects.....except perhaps a faint taste and a few days of flushing just prior to harvest should take care of that. And is more effective than the Bt in the kill ratio and supposedly lasts longer, so fewer applications are needed during the season. Man those little fuckers got almost 1/3 before I got them under control....they are FAST. But then so was the Monterey Garden spray.....will know better next year and start sparying as soon as I see the moths, not even going to wait. Happy Growing! Happier Harvest! Thanks again