Friends and Enemies of the Kohlrabi

Kohlrabi have one very obvious interaction with a species you are very familiar with. They are grown, harvested and eaten by people around the world. It is a delicious snack and can be eaten many different ways.  Rabbits and other herbivores also chow down on Kohlrabi as well as some animals such as goats and cows which will eat what they are feed while on farms and just about anything in the wild. 

One other organism that uses the Kohlrabi as a food source is the cabbage worm. The cabbage worm is a green worm with stripes on its back and sides. They damage the Kohlrabi when the eggs, that had been deposited in spring by the butterfly stage of this organism, hatch and begin feeding on the leaves of the Kohlrabi. This can end up either stripping all the leaves from the plant or just resulting in the vegetable no longer looking appealing. These pests are a serious problem in Illinois where they have to be controlled constantly. Small flea beetles can also do some damage to Kohlrabi plants.  

The common diseases that can infect Brassica Oleracea plants are : Alternaria diseases, cauliflower mosaic, clubroot, downy mildew, light leaf spot, nematode caused diseases, radish mosaic, Rhizoctonia diseases, ring spot, Sclerotinia white mold, white leaf spot, and white rust. For further information on these diseases, I suggest the book Compendium of Brassica Diseases by Rimmer, Shattuck and Buchwaldt.

The basics of Kohlrabi are down. Next up is Classification Information for those of you who really want to know about Kohlrabi. If you aren't up to it, head back to the main page.