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Sprout pests
david234
Posts: 5
in Fruit & veg
This is my first year growing fruit and veg and I am happy with most of my efforts, lots of tomatoes and lettuce with other later crops looking good.
My sprouts though have seemed to be the most desirable and i think birds ate the centres of some of them and the survivors now seem to have attracted some sort of insect problem, i cant see any insects on them could anybody please advise what could be causing this as i am looking forward to home grown sprouts for christmas.
Heres,a pic of my small plot which I shall expand on over the winter.
0
Posts
Unfortunately the Brassica family of plants seem to be attractive to legions of different pests! But don't despair it is possible to to get them through. How you tackle it is up to you but the first thing I would do it cover them with netting or enviromesh ( this is a tougher version than standard fleece). Birds especially Pigeons can strip Brassicas in a matter of a mornings breakfast! Fine netting or even better the enviromesh will also keep cabbage white butterflies & therefore the caterpillars at bay, it will also keep off the Flea beetle, which will make very small holes in leaves and while you are at it keep the carrot root fly at bay. The holes in the picture are most likely cause by slugs & snails. If you only have a few plants copper rings round each one will help or there are various traps. If you have to use pellets (& I admit I do sometimes) look for the ones based on ferric Phosphate as the slugs & snails will crawl away & die out of sight of birds & pets.
Lastly regular readers of my posts will think I have shares in a seaweed company( if only), but a foliar spray with liquid seaweed will be very beneficial, Brassicas especially put on a very deep green hue & it seems to toughen up the leaves and enables the plants to shrug off these attacks. Improves productivity too. The one I use is from the Organic catalogue it looks expensive at first but it goes a long way as you use it very dilute as a foliar spray. Hope this helps.
Thanks Iain that was very helpfull.