Quote:
Originally Posted by SueCT
 Well I do have some aphids. I found 3 on one leaf, they are very sparse. Enough to cause all that damage already? I did spray with Daconil, which I was planning to do anyway. maybe I washed a few off. Can they transmit diseases as well? What is the best way to deal with them? Is picking off the leaves enough? It looks like there might be a huge number of eggs/juveniles if those little tiny bumps are them. I am trying to resize this with no luck for some reason. Sorry. |
I think what you have there in the picture are the moulted white exoskeletons the aphids shed as they grow. I'm sure you'd find more actual aphids under greater magnification. They are not known be to vectors for disease but they sure can do some damage to leaves.
Aphids don't lay eggs, they skip that part of typical insect reproductions and just give live birth on the leaves. That is done asexually by the winged aphids which are usually black in color. The nymphs are very tiny like a speck of dust and camouflaged very well against the leaf color.
The first picture is a leaf with aphid nymphs. The second picture is a section of that same leaf at the full resolution of my camera. I posted this picture on another thread but I adjusted the color levels here so you can see the aphid nymphs more clearly and how many there really were. Ya, so by all means remove and trash the already damaged leaves, that's where they are in greater numbers. Luckily aphids are easy to kill if you need to. Insecticidal Soap, Neem Oil sprays for example.. You really don't need to use any really toxic insecticides. A pyrethrin insecticide is fairly safe and kills aphids but like all broad spectrum insecticides it kills the beneficial insects too.
Personally I don't do anything normally other than removing and trashing the damaged leaves, as the natural predators do a darn good job of controlling them in my garden.