Aphids on Aunt Ginnie's Purple
 

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

[url]http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Aunt_Ginny%27s_Purple[/url]

Bill,please see above for the correct spelling of this variety, and I ask b/c as you'll read above I know it very well and it's in my Tomato Heirloom book that I was asked to write.

I loved it then and still love it now but haven't grown it in several decades to be honest.

And here's hoping you get those aphids under control.:yes:

Carolyn

I have not grown Aunt Ginny's Purple, but I have noticed a preference for certain varieties among aphids. The aphids here are the green type, and they prefer potato-leaved varieties Seems pretty consistent each year... except for the time I grew Roma and the aphids loved that, too.

[QUOTE=carolyn137;698114][url]http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Aunt_Ginny%27s_Purple[/url]

Bill,please see above for the correct spelling of this variety, and I ask b/c as you'll read above I know it very well and it's in my Tomato Heirloom book that I was asked to write.

I loved it then and still love it now but haven't grown it in several decades to be honest.

And here's hoping you get those aphids under control.:yes:

Carolyn[/QUOTE]

Thanks Carolyn. Aunt Ginny’s Purple was a great tomato for me last year and I hope it will be again this year.

Bill

I never had aphids on my tomatoes until last year when I discovered an infestation of pink aphids. I had never even seen pink aphids before and when I Googled them I discovered that they are called Potato aphids.

They were only on 2-3 of my plants as I recall and they were my Brandywine's. I found a few on one other plant that was not a Brandywine but not very many were on that plant. All 3 Brandywines were in the same location so I don't know if the aphid infestation was variety dependent or location dependent. It probably had more to do with the location and spreading from one plant to the next.

I got rid of them by spraying with the hose for several days and that got rid of most of them but I think that I ended up spraying with Neem before they were gone entirely.

Just got in from doing some pruning and connecting my fast growing tomato plants to the string supports and found to my surprise four more plants with aphids. I guess it wasn't the variety as Crynkovic Yugoslavian was infested the worst. They weren't next to each other but scattered through two beds. I have rarely seen aphids in any significant numbers on healthy tomato plants this early in the season. My only guess is that the supply of predator bugs is way down for some reason. I haven't been spraying any poison but I have not seen a single ladybug or lacewing on my tomatoes since I set them out in mid March. I had some on my last lettuce and broccoli so I just assumed they would move to my tomatoes and peppers when they were gone but they didn't. Maybe it is the strong winds that blow through my garden keeping them away. I used a small spray bottle and treated the four plants and waited ten minutes and washed them off with a strong spray of water. I hope I don't have to repeat that too often. This is the time of year when I am used to fighting aphids on my new peppers but they have been fairly clear of aphids. I can tell they are a different kind of aphid because the ones on the tomatoes are mostly pink while the ones that usually hit my peppers are light green. So far I have seen no signs of any foliage diseases and the plants are setting fruit like crazy. I have way too many overloaded clusters of fruit that I need to cull back some; but that is a great problem to have. The temps are getting on up there now so I guess the diseases will start showing up soon. I haven't seen too many thrips yet and no stink bugs or leaf footed bugs and only a few worms so things are looking good for now.

Bill