Aphid Control - by all means

[Dewayne mater]

I've been searching the archives for posts on how to control aphids. I've found several posts and ideas, suchs a green lace wings/lady bugs, soap sprays, chemical sparys and water blasts/squishing, even banana peels.

This is a post that attempts to get as many folks as possible to chip in on the topic of aphid control, so that there is a somewhat comprehensive post on the topic, instead of a few different piece meal posts. Hopefully, you'll agree to contribute and in the future, folks will search find this post and come away knowing how to win this battle.

Please post what you've used, how you use it and if it invovles purchases, where you got the products and any other helpful hints for eradicating aphids.

In my case, I'm using earthtainers for the first time and have a very early infestation of little green aphids beggining to cause leaf damage. So far, garden oil sprays have been laughed at by these aphids. So, what is next?

As for predatory bugs (Green L.W.s, ladybugs) how do you get them to stick around in an open garden?

Compost Teas, what do you add to them that gets aphids/bugs?

Chemical sprays, as echo friendly as possible please?

Water blasting?

What else is there?

I've also seen folks say you usually get bugs/disease on stressed plants. These plants are thriving and look fantastic (other than aphids) with excellent growth, flowering, small tomatoes formed, etc. So, I'm thinking these bugs see these awesome looking plants and think, what a smorgasboard for me and my gillions of offspring!

If this idea of a big post works, it might work for other topics too. (goodness I hope folks respond, otherwise I just showed my hiney!)

[dustdevil]

Mix dish soap with water so it is the consistancy to blow bubbles with. Put the mix in a hand sprayer or hudson type sprayer. Spray the problem plants liberally, wait a couple hours, then rinse them off with fresh water. The dish soap is biodegradeable and has a small fertilizer value. This is what I use for aphids and I know it works. I watched the aphids get trapped in this solution and they suffocate.

[Duh_Vinci]

Dust,

There are soap and there are detergent, which one do you use? Last year I tried detergent on one pepper plant (yes, only one was infested a little, not sure why) - it nearly stripped all the leafs of it. Brand name you used? I'll try it again, rather not use harsh chemicals...

Regards,
D

[desertlzbn]

I too am having the aphid problem. I also have been trying many things.
I have been using Neem oil, mixed with Organicide (TM), and some dish soap, it is looking like a promising start. You HAVE to make sure to spay under leaves. I also tried a garlic spray, still not sure if that did anything at all. I have thought about buying garlic concentrate to see if it works.
I do know that to really knock out aphids you have to spray every day for a week or so.

Thanks,
Christylyn

[habitat_gardener]

When I hear about plagues of aphids, the first thing that comes to mind is "too much N fertilizer"! Aphids are attracted by new growth that's growing fast. So switch from higher-number to lower-number synthetic fert, to a slower-release version, to an organic fert, or to a diluted organic fert.

In my garden in general, I let the first flush of aphids flourish because they're food for the predatory insects. I want the predators to stick around, so I leave the prey for them. As the season progresses, they'll establish a balance and I won't need to do anything else to control aphids, as long as I leave some for the predators. I also plant flowers and herbs that attract beneficial insects and that bloom year-round.

Part of organic gardening is a tolerance for some insect damage. I've noticed that when I have several brassica plants, the aphids generally colonize one of them heavily and the others hardly at all to not at all. So I have one sacrificial brassica each spring, and it does recover after that first flush.

I haven't found aphids to be a problem at all on tomato plants, probably because I use compost, not fertilizer. But since I usually grow only one of each variety, if I saw too many aphids on one plant, I'd use either a spray of water or a gloved finger to remove them.

[Qweniden]

I tried lady bugs but they just flew away after munching on a few aphids. Right now the problem isnt too bad so Im just squishing them with my hands.

Soap really isnt that bad for plants?

[desertlzbn]

I don't use any synthetic fert. I only use fish emulsion and compost. Some compost tea. What I think was aphid damage, at least that is what I think I had, I did not see any whitefly evidence, killed the lower third of leaves on my plants. They are recovering now, but there are lots of brown shriveled leaves and limbs in the lower region of my plants. I will post some pictures when I get home.

[habitat_gardener]

One more thing-- if you see lots of aphids, take a magnifying glass and sometimes you will see a hole in the aphids. Some of the tiny beneficial wasps will lay eggs in aphids, and the larvae will eat their way out when they hatch. So if you're lucky enough to get them, you want to leave those predated aphids in place.

[huntoften]

I had a horrible time with aphids until I started using Silver Reflective Mulch Film. The light bounces under the leaves and keeps the aphids from having a shady place to eat. Last year, the only plant that had any aphids was the ONE plant out of 50 that was in a bed by itself and didn't have the SRM under it.

The problem is, the stuff is hard to find! I've been trying to order a roll of it for 2 weeks and keep running into dead ends.

That being said...if you can't find it, try a product called Pyola...I used it on that plant that had the aphids and it got rid of them fast. Canola oil and pyethrins are the main ingredients.

[Duh_Vinci]

Same here, no synthetic fertilizer, just fish, kelp and seaweed based products along with compost.

And as you said, brassicas is were they live, they don't touch the lettuce nearby, non of the 5 rows, just cabbages and broccoli.

Regards,
D

[dustdevil]

Duh Vinci, I used Palmolive dish washing liquid three years ago. The time before that I used Joy dish washing soap. Generally, I use whatever my wife is using to wash dishes.The main thing is that the dish washing soap water can make thick bubbles and you RINSE it off after a couple hours. Read the label to make sure nothing unusual like oxy clean is added to what you use, since companies are always changing their formulas. I've never tried laundry soap because of the bleach, oxy clean, etc.

[b54red]

I just found a product that seemed to work very good the one time I used it this year. It is by Fertilome and is called 'Fruit Tree Spray'. It is neem oil and pyrethrins and is suppossedly safe to day of harvest. My tomatoes and peppers were hardening off and got covered with aphids and they had no nitrogen or chemical fertilizer yet. I sprayed as directed and the next day could only find one or two aphids still alive and haven't had to use it again and it's been over a month. I still see the occassional aphid but the plentiful ladybugs seem to be taking care of them so far. I just hope it will work on the inevitable whitefly horde that usually descends on my plants sometime during the summer.

[dustdevil]

B54, Chems can enter our system thru our skin. Do you wonder if the neem oil and pyrethrins would be in the tomato close to harvest?

[b54red]

No, I don't worry about something as benign as neem oil or pyrethrins. My garden soil is teeming with worms, toads, lizards and ladybugs. If it isn't bothering them it probably won't bother me.
Lighten up folks. Tomato leaves are poisonous as are many parts of the plants we consume every day. If I was that worried about poisoning I surely wouldn't be handling these deadly tomato plants every day.

Originally Posted by dustdevil

B54, Chems can enter our system thru our skin. Do you wonder if the neem oil and pyrethrins would be in the tomato close to harvest?

[Dewayne mater]

Great stuff so far. Keep the ideas coming...please.

I know Howard Garrett, aka the Dirt Doctor, used to recommend pyrethrins, but no longer does. I'm not sure why, but he is generally pretty cautious about the use of chemicals, as I try to be as well. Update, a second spray of an oil mixture (garlic oil, clove oil, cotton seed oil) seems to have knocked the population way back for now.

I'd really love to use ladybugs or green lace wings and may get some, but I'm still trying to figure out how that is going to really work more than on a very temporary basis, since they would be free to clean my plants and move on to buggier pastures. Oh well, that might be worth trying anyway. I've read both of these bugs will also munch down on spider mites. Red spider mites are an annual hot weather constant around here. Does anyone have experience with LB or GLWs controlling a red spider mite infestation.