[mikeguitar]

Thought you may have a few comments to add.
Iv'e always battled with cabbage white attacks on my brassicas-spending hours picking their offspring off my crops. This year I completely surrounded the brassicas with poles and fine mesh netting, the result a massive reduction in leaf damage etc, unfortunately I suffered a   plague of slugs and small snails! could this be due to birds not being able to get access to the slimey thingeys?

[Fisherman]

I guess that’s a possiblity. I used enviromesh over my raised brassica bed. To eliminate the slugs I used nematodes that did a good job but they came back later in the season but didn’t do much damage because the plants were quite big.

[mikeguitar]

Thanks fisherman maybe I'll try nematodes this season, did you add them to each plant?

[Rampant_Weasel]

try putting down beer traps and slug pellets, copper pipe if u have any.

[Goosegirl]

I use netting until Sept then take it off so birds can have a meal. All the heebie-jeebies really have a go at my sprouts if I don't but this method seems to work.

[Fisherman]

Nematodes are applied to the soil in a water solution by a spray or watering can. The one thing you don't see are any dead slugs so its difficult to tell if they have worked or not apart from the lack of damage.

Hope that helps.

[mikeguitar]

try putting down beer traps and slug pellets, copper pipe if u have any.

thanks Rampant, Iv'e got lots of copper pipe i'll try that

[mikeguitar]

I use netting until Sept then take it off so birds can have a meal. All the heebie-jeebies really have a go at my sprouts if I don't but this method seems to work.

yah the little devils really have a bean feast, the netting does work though

[mikeguitar]

Nematodes are applied to the soil in a water solution by a spray or watering can. The one thing you don't see are any dead slugs so its difficult to tell if they have worked or not apart from the lack of damage.

Hope that helps.

Thanks fisherman i'll give that a go too, I was wondering if that's what the organic commercial growers use I can never find any evidence of pest damage on their produce

[Yorkie]

yah the little devils really have a bean feast, the netting does work though

Surely a brassica feast, given the title of the thread 

[mikeguitar]

yah the little devils really have a bean feast, the netting does work though

Surely a brassica feast, given the title of the thread 

Heck I did'nt see that

[Rampant_Weasel]

apparently copper gives an electric shock to their feelers so u need a barrier all the way round.slug pellets are best tho unless u r strictly organic.

[mikeguitar]

apparently copper gives an electric shock to their feelers so u need a barrier all the way round.slug pellets are best tho unless u r strictly organic.

That's interesting about the copper, static discharge maybe, unfortunately you guessed correctly I'm a true organ grinder

[DD.]

Not static as such, their slime reacts with the copper to form a small electrical discharge. Similar to a battery but on a smaller scale.

[mikeguitar]

Not static as such, their slime reacts with the copper to form a small electrical discharge. Similar to a battery but on a smaller scale.

now that is interesting ,to think I spent all those years struggling with electronics without realising, there must be some money to be made from a research project