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Re: Root Maggot

Hi Julie,

>      I have been lurking for approx. 4 weeks and I am trying to send
> a question to the list.  I hope this is the correct method.
>      This will be my third year of vegetable gardening.  Last year I
> planted turnips, and they grew wonderfully, but when I harvested them
> I was shocked to find they were infested with root maggot.  I pulled
> them all up, and then planted carrots and radishes in the same spot.
> Both grew and were also infested with the maggots.
>      I treated the area with wood ash and replanted radishes, but the
> maggots were still there.  Does anyone have any suggestions??  I'm
> not sure of the zone I am in, but I live in Seattle WA.
> Thanks for any help you can provide.
> Julie

As Joyce mentioned, floating row covers will help keep the flies off your
turnips.  These are cabbage maggot flies, and their maggots will feed on all and
any of the brassica genus members.

For the long term you can try to increase your native rove beetle population by
providing habitat for them - maintain permanent beds and plantings, mulch your
planting beds, interplant with cover crops, lay stone or plank walkways to
provide daytime shelter.

Rove beetles are those slender, elongated quick moving black or dark brown
beetles in the soil, 1/10 to 1" long and with short wing covers that cover only
the first three segments of the abdomen.  Many species of them are predators of
aphids, springtails, mites, nematodes, slugs, snails, fly eggs and maggots.  A
few species, including /Aleochara bilineata/ and /A. bimaculata/ parasitize
cabbage maggots and may control up to 80% of them in a field.

I can attest to them as a control.  We used to have cabbage maggots ruin a
percentage of our brassicas the first few years we gardened here.  By building
up the soils organic content (and consequently it's diversity) and maintaining
good mulch cover and permanent plantings we now have lots of rove beetles ...
and haven't lost a brassica to maggots for several years!

   ____________________
  |                    |
  |     Bob Carter     | Kootenay Bay
  |  bcarter@awinc.com | BC, Canada
  |____________________|


Nature does nothing uselessly.                  Aristotle
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