Fruits and Plantation Crops
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Moringa leaf caterpillar
Small green caterpillars web and scrape the leaflets until only the veins are left, and whole trees can be stripped bare in the dry season.
Crops it attacks
Where the damage shows
On the leaves
When to act
In the dry season, look at the leaves of every tree twice a week for webbing and scraped leaflets. Act at the first webs, because a heavy brood can strip a tree in a week.
How to prevent it
- Pick and destroy webbed leaves with the caterpillars inside, early, while few trees are hit.
- Cut back badly hit branches hard. Malunggay sprouts back fast with clean leaves.
- Loosen the soil under the trees after an attack, so the pupae there dry out or are eaten.
- Harvest leaves often and keep trees low. Frequent cuts leave the caterpillars little to feed on.
- Leaves are eaten fresh, so avoid chemical sprays. Use the steps above and Bt.
Natural enemies and biological help
- Bt sprays on young caterpillars kill them and leave the leaves safe to eat after a short wait.
- Spiders, wasps and chickens under the trees eat many caterpillars and pupae.
Where this comes from
Not sure it is this one?
Many pests look alike. Send a photo to Anee, the smart farm technician in anee.io. She reads it with your crop, its age and the weather, and tells you what it most likely is and what to do first. In Tagalog or English.