What's eating my cauliflower already?

[curly_kate]

I have been hardening off my cauliflower & other brassicas, and noticed that something has been eating the leaves down in a very even way. Since they are not in the ground, and I haven't seen any worms on them (which would be my first guess), I'm thinking it's a flying insect. Could it be a cabbage moth?

ETA, we do have chickens, but the plants are out of their reach.

 

[lesa]

Oh boy! I hope that is not what kind of a year it is going to be!! What about slugs/snails? The cabbage moths don't do any damage- it is the worm stage that is bad. What about getting them a little higher off the ground, during the hardening off period, just to cut out the worry of creepy crawlers in the soil? Good luck!

 

[curly_kate]

The weird thing is that I have them sitting on our air conditioning unit, so it would be a long walk for worms, esp. if they hadn't hitched a ride inside....

 

[Ridgerunner]

I would not expect a cabbage moth to feed evenly. I was not sure a cabbage moth would even feed on those plants but a quick Google came up that cabbage moths do feed. It's not just the caterpillars that eat. I'd think it is too early for cabbage moths anyway. Cabbage moths are pretty easy to recognize with their color and spots. You might want to look up a photo so you can kill them of you see them. I manage to kill most of the ones I see with my cap, though that can be a challenge. I'm not as quick or fast as I used to be.

I'd suspect a rabbit or some type of animal, maybe a bird even if it is not a chicken, maybe a cutworm, or even a beetle. Lesa's slug guess may be a pretty good guess. I hadn't thought of those. If you could post a photo of the damage, that might help us.

 

[chris09]

Can you post a picture of the plants that are getting eaten?

I think that it may be birds. Robins and Black birds are hard on young plants.




Chris

 

[curly_kate]

Here are some photos:

I guess birds are the most likely culprit. My chickens could possibly have hopped up and had a snack, but they are not the most graceful creatures, so I would have expected more of a mess. I'm planting them tomorrow, so I'd like to figure out what's eating them so I can be sure they aren't destroyed once they're planted.

 

[Ridgerunner]

From those photos, I don't know. I don't think it is slugs or rabbits. It's eating the leaf and what I'd call the side stems clean up to the main stem. I don't know what bird damage would look like, though that could be the cause. It's awfully early in the year for any kind of caterpillar, but I'd think that way, or maybe a beetle of some sort. With all the expertise on this forum, I'd think someone will be a lot more definite than me.

I think I'd treat it as if it were an insect, maybe insecticidal soap or Sevin if you use insecticides, whatever methods you use.

 

[digitS']

My first guess was earwigs altho' I've never thought that earwigs are much of a problem with the young brassicas.

With the picture: I agree with you Kate, it looks like bird damage. Magpies in one garden get blamed for things like that.

You can keep birds away fairly easily with various "bird scares." I've used tape from cassettes tied on short stakes every so often along a row. Just twisting a thin piece of aluminum foil to a stake, also seems to work when it is just a plant or 2. In a seedling bed that I was transplanting out of in the backyard, a very effective bird scare was a child's toy cat. The "cat" was always somewhat hidden but moved around, often multiple times during the day.

The birds stayed completely out of that bed !

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

The damage is so uniform... I would think a bird would make more of a ragged edge.

I know it's early, but could it be a leaf cutter bee?

Other than that it looks more caterpillar like to me.

 

[so lucky]

One more guess: it looks to me like a bird chomps down and tears the piece off. That would explain why it is even at the center vein.