What kind of pest is the cabbage moth? A detailed guide to damage symptoms and control methods

What kind of pest is the cabbage moth? It has 8 generations per year. Eggs are laid on tender leaves; after hatching, the larvae first feed on tender stems and the leaf epidermis, and after the second and third instars they bore into the fruit to cause damage. The larvae have a habit of cannibalizing one another. Body color often varies, resembling the color of the host plant; mature larvae pupate in the soil and overwinter in the pupal stage.

Damage symptoms: Adults feed on nectar; larvae feed on tender stems and leaves or bore into the stems and gnaw them, causing the plants to wither and die. During the flowering period they gnaw on the floral organs and affect pollination. The most important damage is caused by young larvae boring into young or ripening fruit around the fruit stalk and gnawing it, causing the fruit to rot and lose its commercial value.

Control methods:

1. Use sex pheromones for long-term, large-scale mass trapping of adults.

2. Before planting, irrigation and land preparation are essential to kill the larvae or pupae in the soil.

3. Hang sex pheromone insect traps for the long term to mass-trap male adults, reducing their chances of mating with female adults and lowering population density. At the same time, this can serve as monitoring of field population fluctuations and as a reference for pesticide use. Set up 8 to 10 per hectare, 1 to 1.5 m above the ground.