Divisi
Bagrada bug
Bagrada hilaris · Insect
Photo: Davefoc · CC BY-SA 3.0
Bagrada bug (also called the painted bug) is a small black-and-orange shield bug — a kind of stink bug — that sucks the sap out of cabbage, kale, rape, mustard, radish, cauliflower and other members of the brassica (cabbage) family. Adults and their red, wingless young cluster on seedlings and young plants in hot, dry weather, and the females lay their eggs hidden in the soil at the base of the plants, so numbers build fast and keep coming back. Its sap-sucking leaves pale, star-shaped scorch marks and can kill the growing tip of a young plant outright.
Raquel Baranow · CC BY-SA 4.0 
Downtowngal · Public domain
Why it matters
Bagrada bug is a seedling-killer of cabbage, kale, rape and other greens. A bad attack can take up to 60% of your crop — more than half — because a single bug can kill the growing tip of a young plant so it never forms a proper head, leaving you with blind or many-headed cabbages you can't sell. The bugs shelter at the plant base and the females hide their eggs in the soil, so they keep coming back, and in hot, dry weather their numbers explode and can wipe out a whole seedbed in days. Once the growing tip is dead the plant cannot recover — so your only real defence is catching them early, while the plants are small.
When to act
Any bugs found on seedlings, or fresh starburst lesions on 1 in 10 young plants.
This guidance is general, compiled from published agronomic references including FAO and CABI. Thresholds and timing shift with your crop, your variety and the season.
In much of the region a spray is simply called mushonga — medicine. But a chemical group you cannot name is one you cannot rotate, and a product you did not write down has no pre-harvest interval you can observe. Mushonga, and other farming words →
The full bagrada bug field guide
- Identify it
- Scout for it
- Control it
16 field-guide sections in the app
The full guide to bagrada bug — every symptom to check, how and when to walk your field looking for it, and the controls that actually work, ranked. Built into your crop plan, so you are told to look before it costs you a harvest.
Crops it affects
Frequently asked questions
How do I identify bagrada bug?
The first sign — star-spots: look for pale, whitish or yellowish star-shaped scorch marks stippled across the leaves of young plants, where the bugs have sucked out the sap. Heavily fed patches look wilted and scorched, as if burnt by the sun.
When should I take action against bagrada bug?
Any bugs found on seedlings, or fresh starburst lesions on 1 in 10 young plants.
How do I control bagrada bug?
Prevent it first (your strongest tool): before planting, pull and destroy volunteer brassicas and cruciferous weeds — wild mustard, wild radish, rape regrowth — that feed the bug, and clear old crop residues and soil clods where it shelters and lays eggs. Don't plant right next to a just-harvested cabbage field, and rotate your brassicas onto fresh ground away from last season's.
Which crops does bagrada bug affect?
Among the crops covered here: Cabbage, Spider plant.
Catch it before it costs you a harvest
Divisi builds scouting into your crop plan — it tells you when to walk your field, what to look for at that stage, and what to do when you find it. Free for farmers, works offline.
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