A detailed guide to cabbage aphid control methods, effectively controlling the harm of vegetable aphids

The cabbage aphid is a type of aphid, also known as the cabbage root aphid, turnip aphid, and others. It parasitizes cruciferous vegetables such as Chinese cabbage, rapeseed, radish, mustard, bok choy, choy sum, cabbage, cauliflower, and turnip, with a particular preference for Chinese cabbage and mustard-type rapeseed. It is distributed throughout the country and causes considerable harm to vegetables. Let's take a look at the control methods for cabbage aphids below!

The damage characteristics of cabbage aphids

Cabbage aphids cause damage on the undersides of vegetable leaves or on the tender shoots and young leaves of seed-producing plants, causing shortened and bent internodes, and young leaves to curl downward in a deformed manner, making the plants stunted, affecting head formation or head development, and causing reduced yield. Seed vegetables that are affected cannot bolt, flower, and set seed normally. At the same time, they transmit viral diseases, and the damage caused is far greater than the aphid damage itself.

The occurrence pattern of cabbage aphids

In warm regions, cabbage aphids occur for more than ten generations per year in northern regions, and for dozens of generations per year in southern regions. In warm regions or in greenhouses, they reproduce as wingless viviparous female aphids and cause damage year-round. In regions north of the Yangtze River, they overwinter as eggs in vegetable soil, hatch into fundatrices in March to April of the following spring, reproduce for several generations on overwintering hosts, and then produce winged aphids that migrate to other vegetables, expanding the damage. They do not have the habit of alternating hosts. In late autumn, some produce sexual aphids, which mate and lay eggs to overwinter.

Control methods for cabbage aphids

1. Agricultural control: Pay attention to protecting and utilizing natural enemies, strengthen field cultivation management, arrange vegetable fields rationally, and intercrop or relay crop with tall-stemmed crops according to local conditions. Strengthen fertilizer and water management to promote early and rapid growth of vegetable plants and enhance aphid resistance. Where conditions permit, using silver film to repel aphids and yellow boards to trap aphids can reduce aphid density.

2. Chemical control: When aphids occur in patches in the field, promptly apply pesticides for control. Alternately spray 50% pirimicarb wettable powder at 2000 times dilution, 60% imidacloprid water-dispersible granules at 15000 times dilution, and 20% acetamiprid soluble concentrate at 6000 to 8000 times dilution, and other pesticides.