Cabbage stem weevil

Adult

The beetle is black, covered with grey scales and hairs. There is a small pale spot behind the scutellum.

Damage

• The beetles feed on the tissue of petioles and thick veins on the underside of leaves: they gnaw through the skin and eat out small cavities, around which swellings form as the tissue grows.
• The beetles also gnaw round holes in leaves and often pierce the tips of young stems of cabbage transplants and seed plants.
• The larvae bore a tunnel along the leaf petiole into the stem, eat out the pith and move down the stem, sometimes as far as the root collar. One leaf can hold 20 or more larvae.

When to look

It colonises and damages winter oilseed rape crops from budding to flowering.

No rate and no spray timing here: both come from the label and the register.

Agronomy

• Before planting, reject cabbage transplants infested with larvae.
• Destroy weeds, because they often become hotspots where the pest breeds and builds up.
• Loosen the soil on plots with seed plants during the period when the stem weevil pupates.
• Collect and destroy seed plant leaves damaged by the pest.
• Follow a proper crop rotation. Place seed plants away from fields where they were grown in previous years.

Favourable conditions

The beetles fly only in very hot weather.

Every fact rests on a quote from its source, and each quote was checked against the page it is printed on.

1. Зайцева І. А., «Сільськогосподарська ентомологія. Курс лекцій», навчальний посібник, 237 с. · Дніпровський державний аграрно-економічний університет, Дніпро, 2021 · p. 156, 157
2. EPPO Global Database · European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization
3. Прогноз фітосанітарного стану агроценозів України та рекомендації щодо захисту рослин у 2025 році · Держпродспоживслужба, НААН, НАН · p. 123
4. Photos: Paul Cook, iNaturalist, CC BY 4.0 · Mick E. Talbot, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 · Udo Schmidt from Deutschland, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 · AJC1 from UK, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0