Radishes full of worms?

Do you have great looking radishes and cannot wait to enjoy them? Well, of course. Home-grown radishes should be juicy and have the typical tangy and delicious taste. However, when you cut it in half you may notice that the flesh has a brown spots and tiny holes. Unfortunately, this could happen. These brown spots are where larvae live and you certainly do not want that. The culprit is called Delia radicum, also known as the cabbage fly, specifically its larvae. Let us focus on this pest in more detail and give you few tips how to avoid it.

Cabbage fly, a well-known enemy of radishes

First of all, your culprit is the larva and not the fly. The fly lays its eggs of course, but the larvae do to damage. The larvae also destroy spinach, beets and other plants. Larvae create typical corridors on leaves but these are rather small on radishes but much more noticeable on other root plants. The problem becomes more relevant when you notice larvae in the bulb – and you notice it when you bite into it…

Photo: Radek Štěpán

The life cycle of a cabbage fly

First, let us take a look at the fly itself.It is a silver-gray insect about 5 to 7 mm long. Eggs are about 1 mm long and larvae are from 6 to 8 mm long. They are white or yellowish. As for the life cycle, adults will hatch from pupae at the end of April. The fly lays eggs on the underside of leaves in May and larvae eat both leaves and underground parts. And they have a big appetite is you may imagine.

Nonwoven fabric works well

If you sowed radishes or other radish-like crops and want to prevent the cabbage fly from destroying your harvest use a non-woven fabric to cover the bed. Larvae will have nothing to hatch from. A good idea is to choose radishes that are not so susceptible to cabbage fly. For example, so-called round radishes, which are rarely attacked but the elongated types are attacked almost regularly. See the photos below.

Source: agromanual.cz, syngenta.cz

Preview photo: Radek Štěpán