Ruud Kleinpaste: Controlling aphids

Controlling aphids 
It’s the time for aphids to explode in your garden. Whether you are growing roses, peaches, or at least another 400 different plant hosts, aphids will turn up at some stage in your life. Aphids are known as sap-sucking insects. But most importantly, aphids are great at transmitting virus diseases, from which a host plant rarely recovers. 
Aphids will continue to be a pain right through the summer and well into autumn, so get ready! Parthenogenesis is their game: females produce live young daughters who – in turn – will be able to produce their own off-spring within 10 days or so. This can explode quite quickly! Control has to be swift, to reduce female populations quickly. 
“Digital control” is the art of squashing the blighters between thumb and forefingers. It’s easy and organic – no pesticides! 
Biological control has many different versions: Buy yourself some parasitic wasps (Aphidius is the parasite to look for) and you can get them on-line. Alternatively, get some ladybird beetles that devour aphids, or some larval lacewings. 
Mind you the trick is to attract these goodies, by providing them with the right flowers with pollen and nectar, so they will breed and multiply and lay eggs among the aphid colonies. The right flowers are Phacelia (the blue tansy), buckwheat, parsley flowers and carrot flowers, as well as dill, fennel, borage, queen Anne’s lace, and such umbelliferous delights. 
Sprays are tricky, as they can kill the good buggers that will hunt your aphids. Organic sprays are pyrethrum (which will indiscriminately kill any insect, to be frank) and neem oil, which may not affect hard-bodied critters, such as parasitic wasps and predatory beetles. 
Spraying oil (Conqueror Oil etc) will often smother the aphids and sometimes also the beneficials, depending on the dose-age. 
Then there is Insecticidal soap, also known as “fatty acids”, containing potassium salts. This is the ancient version of abrasive soap; the stuff we used to see on TV commercials with “Madge, you’re soaking in it!!”. The more abrasive the soap, the more it rips the skin off an aphid; no wonder the insecticidal soap or fatty acids (knowns as “Yates Nature's Way Vegie & Herb Spray) works pretty well! This stuff is usually rather survivable for predators and parasitoids 
So far, I have only mentioned organic materials that would be great for food crops. The trick is to spray at the sides on which the aphids are active – often the under-side of leaves. The other thing to consider is that it pays to repeat the spray process at least three times on a weekly basis.That way you’ll get the next generation of sucking bugs that weren’t killed by the earlier sprays. It means you really reduce the populations on your plants…so keep at it!  LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE

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