Turnip Moth

• It does not devour the whole plant: it cuts it off at the base, so that a single caterpillar can ruin dozens of seedlings in a night while eating almost nothing.
• The damage shows up as gaps in the crop rows, and the culprit is found curled up in the soil a few centimetres from the severed plant.
• The caterpillar curls into a perfect C when uncovered, a defensive posture typical of soil-dwelling noctuids.
• The caterpillar is the stage known in Spanish as the gusano gris, and its damage is characteristic: it mows down seedlings at ground level during the night, cutting through the stem, and in the morning the grower finds the plant lying flat and apparently intact.
• By day it stays buried beside the plant it has cut, curled into a C shape, which makes it hard to find.
• It attacks practically any herbaceous crop: beet, maize, potato, vegetables and cereals.
• It is migratory: the adults travel long distances, and northern European populations are renewed each year by arrivals from the south.
• Control relies on pheromone traps to track the flights and decide when to treat, because the caterpillar is only vulnerable in its early stages.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat & environment

Arable crops, vegetable plots and disturbed soil

Sources consulted: CABI Compendium; EPPO; Ministerio de Agricultura de España