Aphids on Aunt Ginnie's Purple

[b54red]

I rarely have more than minor instances of aphids on my tomatoes but this morning I went out and was doing some culling and pruning and found one plant just covered in aphids. It is a very healthy looking Aunt Ginnie's Purple with a good fruit set. No other tomato plant had more than one or two aphids on them and the ones right next to it on both sides were clear.

The reason I find this so odd is that I had the same problem with one of my Aunt Ginnie's last year at about this same time while no others were affected. I sprayed it and kept a close eye on it only to find the aphids return again almost overnight but not as many. This happened a few times over the next month. The plant was one of the healthiest and most productive I had last year and it lived as long or longer than most of the others with no signs of disease other than a little EB which hit most of my plants a bit last year.

It looks like exactly the same thing is happening again this year. I was wondering if anyone else had experienced aphids going for just one variety of tomato in consecutive years or if anyone knows why they would be more attracted to it than the other 50 plants all around it?

In the past before I started grafting this would be a sure sign of early RKN damage or early signs of fusarium starting up; but I really doubt that is the problem now. I have not seen any fusarium or nematode damage on my tomatoes since I started using the RST-04-106 root stock a few years back.

Of course this could just be one of those garden flukes that will never happen again; but I only started replanting Aunt Ginnies Purple last year so I took notice and thought I might ask if anyone else had seen this phenomena.

Bill