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Apr 23 2008

Aphid control – organic style

Written by Jungle Jim

Wednesday, 23 April 2008

Aphid is one of the most common garden pests. (Note that aphid is plural and aphis is singular.) The common rose aphid attacks a broad range of plants, including roses as one of its main victims.

If you have aspirations to be an organic gardener what can you do? I have talked about it before, but what I do is depend on washing off the early aphid and using lady bugs and encarsia wasps as natural pest control.

We sell lady bugs and you can develop a native population of lady bugs. When you buy them you put them out in the evening, be sure there is moisture available where you put them, at the base of plants with aphid. What you are looking for is for them to lay eggs that hatch into lady bug larvae. These are miniature striped alligator looking bugs that actually are the best aphid eater.

Encarsia wasp is a tiny wasp about the size of small ground pepper. About the size of the period ending this sentence. They insert eggs inside aphis and they hatch inside and kill the aphis. At first the aphis get bloated and turn black, eventually turning tan. These are really effective and can wipe out a heavy infestation in a week or so. Recently we have been able to sell them to our customers. These really work.