Posted: 6/15/2010 9:09:37 PM EDT
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A couple days ago I noticed some holes in the leaves of my broccoli plants. I didn't get a chance to check them yesterday due to heavy storms but when I checked today some of my leaves have been almost totally eaten away!! I took some pictures of a couple pests that I believe are doing the eating. Does anyone know what these caterpillar things are? My cucumber, bell peppers and tomatoes are fine. I also bought this stuff in hopes it will help. Any thoughts on it?
http://www.scotts.com/smg/catalog/productTemplate.jsp?proId=prod140012&itemId=cat50080 
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| there the white moth larve, some european moth or something is what i beleive there called, seven dust or pyrmitherin, will nock them out. Pieris rapae |
I don't know how many plants you have. I have 20. I have spent the last two weeks smashing those caterpillars between my fingers. I usually head out in the morning before work. The first day I found a ton and probably spent a half hour smashing. They definitely decreased in numbers every day. Now it takes a quick minute or two to just check but I haven't found any in a few days. Not only is it environmentally friendly, I secretly enjoy making those little bastards pay! 
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Quoted:
I don't know how many plants you have. I have 20. I have spent the last two weeks smashing those caterpillars between my fingers. I usually head out in the morning before work. The first day I found a ton and probably spent a half hour smashing. They definitely decreased in numbers every day. Now it takes a quick minute or two to just check but I haven't found any in a few days. Not only is it environmentally friendly, I secretly enjoy making those little bastards pay! WTF do you do with 20 plants? I have 2 and can barely eat all of it... |
Update on the pests. The Sevin Dust has worked wonders. It may not be the most "organic" method to destroy these pests but it eliminated them in about 3-4 days. Now a couple weeks since my original post, large new leaves have grown and are hole free
Thanks for the help everyone. And the question was asked about how many plants I have. Only 2  But there were so many of these pests I didn't want to pick them all off. They almost ate a whole broccoli plant in a couple days.
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| Glad you got the problem taken care of. Next year you should try getting your brocolli out early like I do - around the 1st of March. The plants do sooooo much better and produce much better. I put my cauliflower in then too. We've had a couple inches of snow on our brocolli & cauliflower in years past and it almost seemed like it helped the plants !! We always have all we want in the freezer long before the first critters start on the plants, have never had to use pesticides on our brocolli or cauliflower. We've had the same luck with it when we lived in central Va as we do here at home in Tn. |