"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow writes:
Om were you thinking of the cabbage grubs that are laid by the white
cabbage butterflies? If you were then this does work. Make up some
fake cabbage butterflies (I use the white opaque plastic form old milk
cartons) and mark then so that they have the black markings of real
cabbage butterflies with a felt tip pen and then put them on bamboo
stakes and put them around your cabbages. The cabbage butterfly is
territorial and will go elsewhere if it thinks that that cabbage is
already taken by another cabbage butterfly.

Why bother making plastic b'flies? Just catch some real ones, add a dab of
wood glue and fix them to the end of sticks that you can move around your
plants as needed! That way you reduce the population of moths into the
bargain! But I admit the real ones are not as rain resistant as the plastic
replicas.

I think you are right about them being territorial. I recall many a time
seeing a white moth lazily bobbing around my father's cabbage patch until
it neared another when one would zoom into the path of the first until they
seemed to momentarily collide and then one would leap away to put some
distance between them. At the time I assumed I was witnessing an attempt at
romance, and subsequent rebuff, but now that you have pointed it out, this
behaviour could have been a moth protecting its patch.

For Australian readers: Noisy miner and Indian mynah birds just love
catching moths on the wing. Currawongs are good at it, too.
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)