Poland: Rapeseed sawfly attacks cover mustard crops, the main crop is under threat

Poland is currently facing a significant infestation of rapeseed sawflies in some regions, with the pest first spotted in August and spreading to mustard intermediate crops. The sawflies can cause extensive damage to cabbage plants, skeletonizing leaves and potentially destroying entire crops. While the current infestation poses a threat to mustard and future rapeseed crops, the use of insecticides is prohibited under EU standards for sowing intermediate crops and eco-schemes. The situation is further complicated by the need to maintain catch crops in the field until certain dates and restrictions on their mechanical destruction. The infestation highlights the need for pest control measures to prevent future outbreaks and the challenges posed by the need to balance agricultural practices with environmental requirements.

A warm summer, and then September, are favorable conditions for the mass appearance of rapeseed. The image of the pest could be observed in the fields in Poland as early as August, and this was already a signal that there could be problems soon, writes Farmer.pl. And so it happened. As noted, an invasion of this pest is currently observed in some regions of Poland. It is found on all cabbage plants. Rapeseed sawfly appeared en masse on rapeseed carcasses, and also gradually moved to intermediate crops of mustard. "Younger caterpillars gnaw through small holes, but older caterpillars gnaw to the point of skeletonizing the leaves. They are so voracious that they can destroy a large number of plants in a crop in a few days. The pest initially avoids inflorescences, but in the absence of leaf mass it also feeds on flowers. In the intermediate crops of mustard, checked in the second decade of September, there were so many pests that most of the leaves were practically eaten, and large ...