(by 6 people)
One of the most common garden pests is the aphid. Many fruits and vegetables can be easily damaged by this small insect. However there are a variety of natural pest control techniques that can make managing your aphid infestation much easier and lessen the impact on your summer garden. And don't forget, aphids HATE winter, so over-wintering some veggies may be your best bet!
Learn How To Manage Your Aphid Infestation
- What is an Aphid?
- About the Aphid
- Take a close look at an Aphid
- My Aphid Battle Techniques
- Natural Aphid Management Techniques and Methods
- Garden Videos about Aphids
- Tips for Using Ladybugs
- Natural Aphid Control Products
- Growing During the Aphid Off-Seasons
- Advice from Fellow Gardeners
- Check Your Local Gardening Conditions
- How do you deal with Aphids in your garden?
What is an Aphid?
Aphids, also known as plant lice,Not to be confused with "jumping plant lice" are small plant-eating insects, and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea.Aphids are also sometimes known as blackflies and greenflies (page 86 of Bugs of the World, George C. McGavin, Facts on File, 1993) Aphids are among the most destructive insect pests on Earth.Bugs of the World, George C. McGavin, Facts on File, 1993, ISBN 0816027374
About 4,400 species of 10 families are known. Historically, many fewer families were recognized, as most species were included in the family Aphididae. Around 250 species are serious pests for agriculture and forestry as well as an annoyance for gardeners. They vary in length from one to ten millimetres.
Natural enemies include predatory lady beetles (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae), hoverfly larvae (Diptera: Syrphidae), parasitic wasps, aphid midge larvae, aphid lions, crab spidersPhoto of crab spider eating Aphis asclepiadis aphids on common milkweed, Anurag Agrawal, Phytophagy Laboratory, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Department of Entomology at Cornell University. lacewings (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae), and entomopathogenic fungi like Lecanicillium lecanii and the Entomophthorales.
Aphids are distributed worldwide, but are most common in temperate zones. Also, in contrast to many taxa, species diversity is much lower in the tropics than in the temperate zones. They can migrate great distances, mainly through passive dispersal by riding on winds. For example, the currant lettuce aphid (Nasonovia ribisnigri Mosley) is believed to have spread from New Zealand to Tasmania in this way.Scientist battles lettuce aphid, Pip Courtney, Landline, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, October 30, 2005, Retrieved 1 January 2007 Aphids have also been spread by human transportation of infested plant materials.
About the Aphid
- Gordon's Aphid Page
- An introduction to the biology and ecology of Aphids
- Awesome Aphids
- Are colonies of little bugs covering the leaves and stems of your plants? Aphid populations have been high recently in the state, which is somewhat unusual this late in the season (normally the spring generations are more predominant). While you may view them as just another nasty to be eliminated, they're also really fascinating creatures, with bizarre lifestyles and eating habits and they're also dinner for lots of other insects.
- MicroAngela - Aphid
- Aphids are insects that are parasites on the roots, leaves, and stems of plants. Aphids have a proboscis which contains four sharp stylets which is used to pierce plant tissue and suck out the nutritive juices. Horn-shaped tubes at the rear end of the aphid are called cornicles, and they secrete a waxy substance. Aphids also secrete a sweet substance called honeydew, and some kinds of ants actually hide and keep aphids to "farm" them for this "candy".
Take a close look at an Aphid
My Aphid Battle Techniques
Although it's early in the gardening season, we've already found aphids in our garden.One of the biggest reasons the backyard gardener gets aphids is that no one really has enough room to practice proper crop roation. This involves letting areas lie fallow (unused) or a season or two, planting cover crops that deter pests and replenish soil nutrients. At my house, that would pretty much amount to not gardening or a year or two. So, we vary and rotate our crops as much as we can, and battle the aphids as we go.
If you've got some aphids on indoor plants, it's often really easy to just squish them with your fingers. They look like teeny green specs, almost not big enough to be insects. I had a housemate once who grew orchids and this was her preferred method for dealing with them. She said it relieved her stress too.
Spraying the aphids off outdoor plants with a strong stream of water is also an organic method of pest control. This works well if you have larger and better established plants, and not just little seedlings or starts. Further down this lens you can also find insecticidal soaps, which are organic for humans and plants, but still lethal to aphids.
There are also beneficial insects that love to eat aphids. Ladybugs and green lacewings are the most common. We're going to release ladybugs into our garden this summer and see how that helps.
Natural Aphid Management Techniques and Methods
- Aphid Control
- Aphid control means 1) understanding what this pest looks like so you're 2) using the right technique to control the problem.
- Natural Insect Control: Aphids
- Ants "farm" aphids often keeping them in their nest during winter, then bringing them out in spring and placing them on the host plant. The ants eat the honeydew the aphids produce and move them from plant to plant spreading any diseases that are present.
- Homemade Aphid Control - A Natural Way To Kill Aphids
- Getting rid of aphids is no easy task. Large masses of them seem to appear overnight and without quick treatment, they can overwhelm and kill a plant. Using an organic, homemade aphid control is best for your plants, the environment and beneficial bugs in your garden. Let's look at a few organic control of aphids.
- Green Lacewings for Aphid Control in your organic garden
- The green lacewing is another one of the most effective predatory insect for aphid control in your organic garden and orchards.
- gardenpunks: Organic Aphid Control
- I've talked a lot about the aphid problem with our yard. Yesterday, we made a visit to OSH to pick up a few thing Home Depot or Lowe's would never carry (ie. Horticultural Oil, Rooting Hormone), and we grabbed two tubs of Lady Bugs too.
Garden Videos about Aphids
Tips for Using Ladybugs
Ladybugs love to eat aphids, so they are a nice element to have in the battle against aphids. An adult can eat up to 50 aphids per day. I got some at our local garden center and the woman at their info desk helpfully gave me some tips on releasing them into my garden. Here is a picture I took of the mesh bag with the bugs in it.Ladybugs are kept in refrigerators by commercial garden centers to keep them in a state of hibernation. When they come out of the cold and go into the garden, their instincts are to fly around, find a mate, get busy and then lay eggs. It's this second generation of bugs from the laid eggs that really are the aphid-eating army the gardener is trying to establish.
She suggested I release the ladybugs in the evening and to spread them around in the garden near where we have our vegetables. She also suggested that I not release them all at once, but instead to put half in the garden, then put the rest back in the fridge, then do a second release several days later. This helps distribute the bugs in the garden and helps insure that some of them stay and make baby bugs before flying off or being eaten by something larger.
The ladybug life cycle goes from egg to larvae to pupa to adult, with each stage taking between one and three weeks each, depending on weather conditions. So if the ladybugs I release successfully mate and lay eggs, we'll get resident lady bugs being born from the end of June through August.
Natural Aphid Control Products
Growing During the Aphid Off-Seasons
over-wintering vegetable crops
When I was growing up, I always thought of summer as the time when you gardened and never really gave a thought to the rest of the year. Now, as an adult who is interested in gardening, I've learned that there's a lot of gardening that goes on year-round, and this can be useful when fighting that backyard aphid!Summer is prime aphid time, that's just a fact of weather. However, if you have certain crops that are really being attacked by aphids, you might want to investigate if it would work in your zone to grow some varieties in fall or over-winter. Fall and winter crops are planted late in summer or in the fall, and the vegetables mature during the cooler months or get established, take a few months off and then really get growing during the spring.
You may have to work more to protect plant seedlings that get going during late summer so that they can get a good enough of a headstart against the present insect population, but you'll have a lot less bugs to battle if you explore cool weather gardening! Once the first frost happens, the aphid population goes way down. Look for winter varietals of your summer faves and look into options like cold frames and cloches too.
Advice from Fellow Gardeners
a Google blog search on aphid entries
- Genetic Damage In Minibacteria In Aphids And Ants Repaired By ...
- Aphids (plant lice) and ants carry minibacteria that produce essential amino acids and vitamins. These minibacteria have very limited genetic material and many broken genes. Now, in an article in the journal Proceedings of the National ...
- Re: Aphids!
- Sounds like you have it under control. Keep us updated, I would like to know if it works.
- Genetic Damage In Minibacteria In Aphids And Ants Repaired By ...
- Aphids (plant lice) and ants...
- Genetic Damage In Minibacteria In Aphids And Ants Repaired By ...
- Aphids (plant lice) and ants carry minibacteria that produce essential amino acids and vitamins. These minibacteria have very limited genetic material and many broken genes. ? [Read more]
Check Your Local Gardening Conditions
How do you deal with Aphids in your garden?
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EverythingMouse
I am really just starting to become serious about gardening as I want to create an organic vegetable garden. Squidoo is my main resource for help and I am glad that I found this lens. Posted September 09, 2008 |
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enslavedbyfaeries
Oh, I'm so glad to see the close up picture of an aphid. I have been trying to explain to my girls what they look like and never got around to looking it up. They brought some roses home from a neighbors yard for a pretty arrangement on our kitchen table... a few of my houseplants have suffered the consequences. Posted July 18, 2008 |
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cjbart
Wonderful lens on one of my favorite subjects. We were on of the first Green Laceqwing Insectaries in the late 1950's. More coming in a new lens Posted June 28, 2008 |
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Stazjia
Great informative 5* lens. Posted June 20, 2008 |
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SPF
EWWWWW!!! Those pictures are makin' me itchy!! Very informative lens, though. Welcome (again) to the Backyard Habitat group. Posted June 05, 2008 |
