are ground squirrels eating my seedlings?

11 years ago

I manage a small orchard in Southern California and we have recently expanded to growing some veggies. I start my seeds in my green house and then transplant the seedlings into my raised beds. So I planted a bunch of radishes and kohlrabi in a couple of my beds and the next day all of the leaves had been eaten off. All of them. It did not look like insect damage (but I may be wrong). If it was caterpillars or or something, it had to have been a horde of them to eat the leaves of over a hundred plants. Would ground squirrels do this? What else could it be?

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Comments (3)

kimmq
11 years ago
Rabbits, ground hogs/woodchucks, deer, slugs/snails, cutworms, and possibly squirrels. If those plants were eaten overnight that would pretty much leave out the squirrels since they are not nocturnal.

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Cold Creek Orchard
Original Author
11 years ago
We don't have rabbits or deer. We do have gophers, but I did not think they would go for the leaves only, more the roots. Also, I forgot, whatever it is got all my carrot tops a couple weeks ago as well. Didn't touch the beats or turnips. So if it was insects (we have not seen any animal prints) what should I do? I was using diatomaceous earth but as that gets wet when I water. I have also sprayed the seedlings with neem oil, which was kind of helping. Any other suggestions? I wanted to put hay down in my beds around the veggies but I wasn't sure if that would just encourage more insects...
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kimmq
11 years ago
Gophers, like woodchucks/ground hogs, are herbivores, vegetarians, and will eat any vegetation they can. Most of the insect larva, caterpillars, that would eat those plants would be on the plants when you looked and w2ouild not be able to devour them overnight.

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