So just how excited should I get about a few aphids?

[jhouse]

I think I posted here awhile ago about aphids, I had a handful that seemed to be increasing rapidly on one tomato plant, and hit all the plants with Azamax about 4 or more weeks ago. A week or two later I saw a few more, and hit just the affected plant and it's next door neighbor that also had a few with a second Azamax treatment.

Today I saw a couple on a plant 4 or 5 plants down the row -- squished em --

My question is, should I get excited about it? All the plants (17) are growing like crazy, have blossomed and fruit (seem slow to ripen, we're hot/humid or I'm just impatient) --

I'm not seeing any damage that I can tell from the aphids. I wonder if I can just not worry about it, or will see an aphid explosion? Or maybe just wait and see?

It would be quite a challenge to spray 17 huge indeterminate tomato plants again with the Azamax, I'd be curious about y'alls opinions on it - this is my first go with aphids, usually I just battle early blight.

thanks for any info!

[IMG][/IMG]

[Gerardo]

Concentrate on the new growth, a few aphids can turn into A LOT fast.

[gorbelly]

For me, it's about knocking them back until the beneficial predators can get them on their radar and come in to manage them, so I only intervene if they are really clustered on a shoot. I just use plain water to wash them off the plant so I don't hurt the beneficials. So far, I've only found 2 clusters on my tomatoes that looked like they might be in danger of multiplying to the point of doing damage (my Asiatic lilies were another matter--that took about 2 spray downs with water before they got knocked back, as the ants had taken to vigorously defending them).

I do find a few aphids here and there, singly or in groups of two to several, but I leave them, and they eventually disappear. Eaten, no doubt, or I find their parasitized, mummified corpses around a lot.

Aphids do transfer viruses in their winged form, but once they're reproducing parthenogenically on the plant, I figure they've already done what damage they're capable of doing on the disease front, so there's not much that vigorous intervention will achieve unless they're so numerous that the plant is being damaged. And that really does take a LOT of aphids and some time to happen if you're monitoring regularly.

When they are a problem is if you don't have time to check in with the garden regularly. I can see how a garden without a good population of beneficials could get overrun if you have to neglect it for a week or more.

[luigiwu]

Soapy water works great for aphids - cheap and effective. Better to spray than not spray.

[jhouse]

I haven't seen any beneficials at all

Sounds like I'd best keep a close eye anyway.

[gorbelly]

I think it depends on how many plants you have, too. I only have 10 in-ground plants and 6 dwarfs in containers. Doing a check of the foliage every day isn't a big deal, so I don't spray anything for pests except spinosad at the base of my squash when I notice borer moth activity.

If it's something large, like a hornworm or pest beetle, I pick it off... if I get to it before the birds or wasps do. I've only found 2 hornworms that were still relatively small (1" and 1.5" long). I've seen typical initial hornworm-style damage on a few additional plants but no hornworms or other caterpillars in sight and no additional damage beyond what I initially noticed, so something has apparently been doing pest removal for me.

If I had a mite infestation, I'd probably spray. But aphids are an in-between thing, not large enough to do serious damage to the plant or the fruit and very easy to control if need be on only 10 plants. I tind it's worth leaving alone if they don't look like they're going to achieve any kind of critical mass, since I have to leave the beneficials something to subsist on if I want them to continue hanging out in my garden.

If I had a lot of tomato plants, though, that would change the calculus, and I'd probably be more likely to consider spraying, just because staying on top of things and monitoring them and relying only on physical control methods like squishing/picking/washing would be much harder.

[dmforcier]

Normally I'd say, like gorbelly, if the plant is outside, just keep them knocked back until the good bugs can find them.

If you haven't seen any beneficials, you should review your "control" regimen. Some things that are sold to control XY bad bugs will also kill any nearby good bug. Then you're forced to use more chemicals. => vicious circle

(I had an aphid attack early this year. I sprayed with insecticidal soap, but mostly left the plants infested. Eventually, ladybugs and assassin bug nymphs started to appear, and now I have healthy plants and no aphids. One plant lost, but it was already sick.)

[jhouse]

I'm seriously thinking about buying some ladybugs - - hopefully they'll ship okay in the heat, I found a place in Ohio so it wouldn't take too long. I haven't seen any "masses" on stems or anywhere near that. I love the idea of lacewings, (I guess they stick around) but they're pretty pricey.

[b54red]

Down here most of the beneficial insects move out of the garden when it gets really hot in late May. The first to leave are the ladybugs. The lace wings tend to stick around far longer. If you can get Assassin bugs they will stay all season at least they did for me the one summer they showed up in large numbers. That was the most bug free summer ever for me. I never sprayed once that year except for some worm problems early in the season. Of course they didn't reappear the next year so things went back to normal again. Aphids on tomatoes are way down on my list of serious threats but they can be devastating to bell peppers and very hard to control. I found fewer and fewer aphids on my tomatoes as I learned to prune them for better airflow and sunlight. When I do find them it is usually where the plants have become too bushy and shady. Maybe they don't take to the hot Alabama sun.

Bill

[luigiwu]

Originally Posted by jhouse

I'm seriously thinking about buying some ladybugs

Just out of curiosity, no interest in trying cheap soap water to spray?

[Worth1]

To answer the question of the thread without a bunch of verbal hoopla.
Real excited kill kill and kill again.
I am so serious about them I will sacrifice a whole plant if I have to and burn it in the street with kerosene.
You dont win wars messing around, salt the earth and poison the water.

Worth

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Worth1

To answer the question of the thread without a bunch of verbal hoopla.
Real excited kill kill and kill again.
I am so serious about them I will sacrifice a whole plant if I have to and burn it in the street with kerosene.
You dont win wars messing around, salt the earth and poison the water.

Worth

I found that out three years ago when aphids nearly destroyed my bell pepper plants with a massive infestation.

This year it is spider mites that are really causing a problem. They started earlier than I have ever seen this season and they have not been stopped yet. I am using the same recipe on them that I used last year and it stopped them cold with just one treatment but this year they are the worst I have ever seen and multiplying like mad. I think they really like this extreme heat this summer and plants stressed by it.
I sprayed most of my plants this morning and hope to finish as soon as I can cool off and go back out in the steam bath and finish. I hate spraying in the middle of the day but this is an emergency situation.

Bill

[jhouse]

thanks for the info, especially about the beneficials --- I was ready to buy ladybugs, not sure how they would do in the heat or stick around long enough to kill aphids.

Oddly, I haven't seen any aphids on the hot peppers, I have a row of them next to the tomatoes.

I'm not concerned about the numbers of aphids I've got right now, not seeing damage as I said, I just had no idea of they might really take off though. I'll see if I can find some assassin bugs, hopefully shipping won't be a problem in the heat right now.

[jhouse]

is there a thread with your pruning technique b54red? I've noticed my blight is almost always in the middle of my plants where there isn't good airflow.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by jhouse

is there a thread with your pruning technique b54red? I've noticed my blight is almost always in the middle of my plants where there isn't good airflow.

I use an unusual support system outside that allows me to keep my plants to one or two stems. Before I did this I used a trellis and kept them to 3 or 4 stems and before that I used Texas tomato cages and tried to keep them to no more than 3 or 4 stems.

The first basic thing to do in pruning no matter how you support the plants is to remove as much foliage as possible up to the first cluster or blooms so that more air flow gets under the plant. The other thing is to not let too many stems develop from suckers or stem splits. Whenever you see really dense areas of foliage it is a good idea to thin them out so that air and light can get to the foliage. Pruning is an art not a science and you learn with practice. It is best to prune late in the evening to allow the plant to heal and give it a dose of fertilizer and water as soon afterwards as possible.

Have fun learning. You will make a few mistakes and find some things that work for your plants by experimenting. Different varieties also need different pruning due to the different growth patterns they have and you will catch on pretty quick. The amount and type of pruning you do is determined by your goals for your plants. My main goal is a long producing plant that will give me fresh tomatoes for as long as possible. If I were looking for maximum production in the shortest possible time frame I would prune totally different.

Bill