They eat ragwort. I personally think its the new excuse for not removing ragwort, that they are being used to control it (I've never seen them so much damage other than to the occasional plant) or that removing the ragwort is damaging to the cinnabar moth population....there's plenty of places around here that have ragwort where there aren't any stock, so me keeping my fields clear isn't going to impact the population that much.It is pretty. I just googled and it's used as a means of controlling ragwort?? Wonder I've not seen it here. We don't have any on our land but you do see it growing along roadsides here in places.
They eat ragwort. I personally think its the new excuse for not removing ragwort, that they are being used to control it (I've never seen them so much damage other than to the occasional plant) or that removing the ragwort is damaging to the cinnabar moth population....there's plenty of places around here that have ragwort where there aren't any stock, so me keeping my fields clear isn't going to impact the population that much.
My neighbour doesn't give this excuse, he doesn't give any, just doesn't do itI should imagine there would have to be an awful lot of moths to do much damage to it. Like you say, probably just and excuse for not getting shut of it. How annoying for you when you clear yours.
Sorry but unless these moths are capable of digging down into the soil and competely removing the roots they are never going to get rid of it!
It really is sad, but we have lots of land around here that doesn't have stock on that ragwort grows on, so they are not completely without food, it's just not in my paddockIts really sad isn't it that we have to get rid of the cinnabar moths main source of food.
I can see why we need to get it out of our horse paddocks but surely there must be some way of keeping ragwort somewhere to allow them to survive?
I’m not fond of ragwort but neither am I fond of destroying another species habitat.