Caterpillar invasion... HELP!!!!!

[Nagual]

Help! My fruit bushes (woosterberry) are being eaten by caterpillars, and I need suggestions as to what sprays I can use to kill them. In a couple of weeks the little beasties will be so numerous the leaves will be all eaten regardless of how much time I spend picking them off.

Obviously I need a spray ( or other solution ) that will kill them and still let me harvest the fruit.


Please.. someone out there must be able to help?!

yours in desperation...

Nag.

 

[Bushwhacker]

Most likely Sawfly larvae.

http://www.greengardener.co.uk/product.asp?id_pc=22&cat=62&id_product=250

 

[v-ness]

My mother swears by a solution made from water and washing up liquid and sprayed generously on the bushes.
I have seen it work on caterpillars and other wee critters like aphids and after a rainshower we used to eat our berries and couldnt taste the washing-up liquid on them. Really not sure what it does to the environment though.

Good Luck
Ness

 

[Stanleythecat]

I'd say washing liquid too, it clogs their spiricals (sp?!) and they can't breathe. So it's suffocation rather than poisoning.

 

[Toddy]

Another vote for the Fairy liquid
Failing that, pick them off and feed them to the robins. They'll devour them and feed their chicks.

cheers,
M

 

[locum76]

A fourth vote for fairy liquid. I'd also advocate Toddy's robin feeding trick but you could save yourself time by organising a kids party to do the bug harvesting. 10 kids motivated by a prize for the most bugs gathered (the first punnet of jostaberries) will make short work of your pests.

 

[Toddy]

Neat idea I'll remember that one

atb,
M

 

[mrrivers]

Dont kill them as they are a vital part of the food chain. Get the young uns to pick them off as suggested before, good nature lesson and doing the diminishing bird stocks a favour. If you must spray, eco washing up liquid is best. Anything else and you will be eating what you spray. Not good.
Cheers
Chris

 

[Toddy]

I'm going to disagree.

Having read the bottles and then the safety datas sheets very carefully, and bearing in mind that a few drops of Fairy is much more efficient than the four or five times as much as the other (the value per squirt factor) even though I do buy eco this that and t'other...the Fairy's just the same stuff. It all washes off in the rain anyway and it all decomposes safely.
The green claims about *no* colourants, *no* perfumes are total mince.

Have you noticed that the detergent of choice for cleaning all those poor benighted oil covered birds and sea beasties is Fairy ? There's a reason for it. It not only works, it's biodegradable *and* it's safe to use.

Tbh, this ecological this that and t'other is becoming more and more a way of selling expensive carp. It's all rather depressing. There's no need for it to cost anymore than the cheapest of the cheap stuff. Big business rules and they're all after a profit.

If you really want to degrease your dishes buy washing soda, it's cheap, incredibly effective and ends up no more toxic than the ashes we use at camp.

If your budget is tight and you just want to buy one detergent that will wash dishes, the kitchen floor, the windows, the washing, the bath, and clear your fruit bushes of munching caterpillars *without* destroying the world around you, the Fairy Liquid is it.

Wish they paid commission but they don't, I'm just a happy customer who's tried everything else and found it lacking.

Toddy......housewife for nearly 40 years.

 

[locum76]

One of the basic ingredients for Fairy Liquid is EDTA. The same detergent they use for clearing up oil slicks.

 

[Toddy]

Uhuh, and it works.
It's preferred in washing up liquid because it is a limescale remover.
As far as I know, no manufacturer produces a washing up liquid that contains no limescale removers for those of us who don't need it. Wish they did because edta is so widely used for everything from medicinal purposes, dentistry, and agriculture to metal recovery processes, that it is becoming a pollutant instead of a very good thing.

It's balances again. Oil is a natural product, we process it and in doing so create un-natural or highly concentrated products which we then have to learn to dispose of not just effectively but in such a way that we return it to 'natural'. To do this though requires energy, energy that we've processed the oil to gain in the first place.

Either we live like palaeolithic peoples or we accept that we are a destructive species that really appreciates the benefits of modern life and try to ameliorate our damage. We're trying, but it won't be instantaneous.

My few drops of effective washing up liquid biodegrades in a few weeks not a few days. Against that, one bottle lasts four or five times (I tried it once with eco stuff and in the same time period I bought so many more bottles, that's why I gave up ) as long as the other ones....so that's less bottles to be recycled in the same time period; (one bottle lasts me nearly two months) and, since it is an effective detergent I don't need to buy the dozen other cleaners that folks buy to clean windows, floors, baths, doors, sinks.......s'easy

cheers,
Toddy

 

[British Red]

A simpler, more effective solution is to buid a fruit cage with a very fine mesh. This cuts down both bird based depradation and insect attack. A similar, lower lift off cage protects brassicas from cabbage white butterflies.

I don't want caterpillars eating my cabbages - but I do like butterfiles in the garden. I have been known to plant sacrificial plants outside the cage as well - win / win.


larger small white caterpillars by British Red, on Flickr

 

[blacktimberwolf]

How about a thin, concentrated blast from a hose pipe .

 

[Toddy]

My bother, in the spirit of being an idiot once de-caterpillared (and defoliated) our gooseberry bush by firing an air rifle filled with sugar at them He thought it would just knock them off.........like a sweet shotgun blast

Not recommended.

M

 

[locum76]

lol. I'll maybe try that one on the slugs in the polytunnels.

 

[Loz*]

Never heard of a woosterberry but i grow redcurrants and gooseberries.
Proper pruning is the trick to prevent reinfestation, you need to ventilate your bush!
Sawfly dont like draught. Pruning fruit bushes is usullly done in winter.

http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/projects/gooseberries-redcurrants-winter-prune/

Good luck