We generally don't experience pest problems, however we do keep a close eye on a few organisms in order to prevent them from causing significant damage. Cabbage White are one such organism.
Pieris brassicae - Cabbage White
Pieris brassicae - the large white, also called cabbage butterfly or cabbage white have been flying since early June - always a clear signal to keep an eye out for their eggs on the underside of our Brassica crops which this year include Kale, Borecole and Kohlrabi. One adult female can lay up to 600 eggs and a small batch of the larva (20-30) can obliterate a 40 x 20 cm leaf in a few days so this is one potential pest we pay careful attention to.
Large White - Pieris brassicae eggs and new hatched larvae on underside of Kohlrabi leaf
One advantage of polyculture is that it's more difficult for the butterflies to locate our crops among the other crops and they spend more time in flight where that are more likely to be caught by one of the many birds that use the garden as a feeding ground. Some butterflies do manage to mate and lay eggs so we check the underside of leaves every 4-7 days. If we fail to remove the eggs and the larvae emerge they need to travel around various other plants before they can locate another brassica food plant and are again more likely to to be located by the teams of pest predators we work with on the site i.e birds, frogs, toads, ground beetles, predatory wasps etc.
Polyculture Produce
