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Disaster
baza
Posts: 670
Hello Everyone
Been to the garden today and noticed 4 of my coli's wilting ,noticed my neighbours doing the same and asked him what was causing this he said small maggots are eating the roots and sure enough i pulled one up and there they were having a feast tiny maggots chomping away.
He said i should leave the infested one in the ground and let them eat the coli's which puzzled me because i thought by pulling them up and destroying them you get rid of the problem.
Is there a treatment or are we buggered
So Disappointed
Baz
0
Posts
Bit late once they have started on them. Cabbage root flies that is. What you need to do in future is to put the pads down round the plant when you put it in. These are circles of roofing felt with a slit to a hole in the centre. They stop the fly laying its eggs on the plant stem.
The chemical treatment makes the plants inedible to my way of thinking.
Diluted Jayes Fluid around the base of the stems will kill the worms. It's an old remedy round here but others might not recommend it.
Gutted it could be all my coli's and sprouts infected pulled a few up tonight and they all had them they were growing great aswell
Baz
Once the Cabbage roots flies are in your growing area then they tend to attack every year there after.
Sad, but all you can do is interrupt the cycle, either by killing the grubs,or preventing the flies from laying their eggs or not growing Brassicas for a few years.
Hello Berghill i pulled up the infected ones the other night and got rid of them the other plants look ok but some of the leaves are yellowish at the bottom on some of the plants now to me this happened last year and the plant was fine come the time to harvest but with whats happened now to the other plants could this be a sign of the cabbage fly larva attacking the roots ? I'm very tempted to pull the lot !
Thanks for your advice
Baz
Is there any way you can move the decent ones that aren't nibbled? Just wondered if you could move and then cover with a fleece. I've put in brussels and some cauli's this week, but I've used cabbage collars on the stems of the cauli's and covered the whole lot with either fleece or a fine mesh to stop the cabbage fly. Just thought you may be able to save the rest? Worth a try?
Thanks Everybody for your replies . No-Expert mentioned jayes fluid before, my neighbour has just used it on his and so have i got nothing to lose!!!!!!
I'll see what happens and let you all know
Thanks
Baz
Hello Everyone just a quick update used jayes fluid yesterday on all my cabbages,colis and sprouts and went up tonight to check on them and was expecting them to be in very poor condition but they are all ok for now.
The problem is a lot worse as a lot of gardeners have this pest destroying their crops!!!
Frustration is an understatement you grow them from seed for them to be eaten by a tiny maggot/worm
Thanks
Baz
Sometimes the old remedies are the best. Keep us posted on the progress.
Just an update regarding the cabbage root fly
I treated all my cabbages , collies and sprouts with jeyes fluid at first i thought it done the trick but unfortunately i'm losing more and more especially the collies GUTTED.
The problem is a lot worse than i thought every gardener i've spoke too have got them .
One gardener pointed out that we never really had any hard frosts over the winter and he blames this for not killing them off which to me he has a point as the year before i had bumper crops
Once the season is over i'll be using the jeyes fluid again in the infected part and hopefully erradicate them.
Any thoughts on this?
Thanks
Baz