STORY LEAD:
A Salad That Diamondback Moths Can't Resist
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ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
March 16, 1999
Tara Weaver-Missick, (301) 504-1619, tweaver@asrr.arsusda.gov
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What's a good way to stop hungry diamondback moths from nibbling on a
farmer's cabbage, broccoli, kale and other cole crops? Agricultural Research
Service scientists have an answer: give the pests a heaping serving of
collard greens.
Entomologist Everett Mitchell, at the ARS' Center for Medical, Agricultural
and Veterinary Entomology in Gainesville, Fla., says giving the pest
collards spoils its appetite for cabbage. The moths can't resist the
all-you-can-eat collards when they're planted completely around cabbage
field edges, a strategy called trap cropping that could also work to protect
other cole crops.
Invading diamondbacks stop and deposit their eggs on the collards rather
than on adjacent cabbage plants. Diamondback populations continue to
re-cycle in collards as long as plants remain green and continue to grow.
Diamondback moths, named for the diamond-shaped markings on their wings, are
becoming resistant to many chemicals. Spraying pesticides can be costly,
ranging from about $10 to $21 an acre for each application, depending on
which pesticides are used. It typically costs growers $80 to $168 per acre
or more each season to produce a crop.
Mitchell conducted recent experiments on farms in northeast Florida that
showed the moths prefer to feed on highly fertilized collard plants. He
tested this approach for more than two years. In all cases, he says, damage
to cabbage by diamondback moth larvae was minimal.
This simple, low-tech, cost-effective method also reduces pesticide use.
Cabbage fields surrounded by collards required 75 to 100 percent fewer
sprays to control diamondback moth than fields treated conventionally with
pesticides.
An in-depth article on this research appears in the March issue of
Agricultural Research magazine. The story is also on the World Wide Web at:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/mar99/diam0399.htm
ARS is USDA's chief research agency.
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Scientific contact: Everett Mitchell, ARS Center for Medical, Agricultural
and Veterinary Entomology, Gainesville, Fla., 32604, (phone) 352-374-5710,
(fax) 352-374-5804, emitchell@gainesville.usda.ufl.edu.
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