Urban Ag Pest Updates: Cabbage Whitefly

March 9, 2022


If you are an urban farmer in NYC and you see tiny white creatures fluttering around your brassicas, or little yellowish larvae stuck firmly to the undersides of your kale, collard, and broccoli leaves, there's a good chance you are looking at cabbage whitefly. This pest, resembling a very small moth but more closely related to aphids, is a relatively new species in our region, but for many NYC urban farms it's already the top brassica pest.

In this lunch session, CCE Urban Agriculture Specialist Sam Anderson will give an overview of what we know about cabbage whitefly, including how to recognize it early. We will see what has and hasn't worked for other urban farmers, and we will talk through some strategies you can try this year, leaving plenty of time for Q&A and farmer-to-farmer sharing. This is a free event!

BQLT Monthly Gardener Gathering

November 1, 2025
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
East Elmhurst (Queens), NY

Please join us for our BQLT Monthly Gardener Gathering on Saturday, November 1 from11:00 AM-12:30 PM at McIntosh Neighborhood Garden in East Elmhurst, Queens. Come learn how this host garden has been addressing their complex lead/heavy metal soil test results by drawing from several free resources: Green Thumb, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and NYC's veterans' volunteer platoon, The Mission Continues. 

New York Urban Farms Sustainable Pest Management Fact Sheet Series

Cornell Cooperative Extension has partnered with dozens of urban farms across New York State to demonstrate and evaluate sustainable pest management strategies. Together with farmers, we found success using control methods that prevent or reduce crop losses through exclusion strategies, crop timing, host resistance, the introduction of beneficial organisms, and more. Regardless of management strategy used, common requirements for success include a knowledge of the pest and disease complex, preventative deployment and commitment to the process. The New York Urban Farms Sustainable Pest Management Fact Sheet Series includes case studies highlighting pest management techniques that New York urban farms have found valuable.