Quote:
Originally Posted by Bipetual
on the tomatoes some really tiny black things that look kind of like gnats. They're on all my tomato plants but there don't seem to be too many per plant. I've been squishing them. I hope they're nothing to be concerned about, as my other tomato plants all seem really healthy.
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Do they look like this?
Are they really slow, i.e. easy to catch and squish?
If so, they're the winged form of aphids. Yes, squishing them is good. The winged ones develop in the fall to mate sexually and lay eggs that overwinter. In spring, winged aphids hatch to find host plants. Sometimes, the winged forms develop when a food source is bad and it's time to move on to different plants. (Not all aphid species do it exactly this way). Once on the plant, aphids "clone" themselves asexually and reproduce very rapidly in wingless form.