In the vegetable forum, the thread linked below claimed that artificial vanilla flavoring inhibits cabbage looper moths from laying eggs on Brassica plants.

Anyone know any links that discuss in detail the interactions of vanillin with insects? I tried a Google search of "vanillin + insect". This search yields way too many useless hits! But I found some info that:

1. Vanillin isn't a mosquito repellant per se but potentiates other mosquito repellants

2. Vanillin and chemical analogs may act as sexual attractants and pollination attractants.

3. Vanillin and analogs in maize may repel some insects.

I did not find any full scientific papers about these 3 points, but I found some abstracts with hardly any detail.

The discussion about vanillin is deeply buried in the following link:

Here is a link that might be useful: Vanillin sprayed onto Brassica