Ladybug Experiment

Well, finally gave up trying to soap and water spray the aphids. They were winning and I was getting concerned about possibly killing caterpillars. So we just released 900 ladybugs. If you are interested, I will report back the results. Karen

Yes! Let us know. I love them, though at cetain times of year we end up with them in our house. They love the sunny eastern side near our deck. Our neighbor lady who is 90 got really freaked out a couple years ago and started killing them. What a shame.

That is a shame. Will keep you posted. Karen

Yes, please let us know how they do. Have you noticed any ants near the aphids?
Ants will farm the aphids by carrying them onto the plants do that they can "milk" the honeydew excreted by the aphid. They will also protect their aphid cattle from the ladybugs and lacewings. If you do notice a lot of ant activity near the aphid, I recommend putting out a boric acid or borax ant bait in a container that allows the ants to enter but prevents ladybugs or bees from accessing the poisoned syrup.

Having nectar and pollen producing flowers like yarrow nearby will help keep the ladybugs in YOUR garden. I've learned this the hard way by releasing beneficial insects that moved to the neighbors after a few days. LOL! I'm currently trying some Good Bug Chow to see if it will help keep them home. We've finally gotten some ladybug larvae showing up, so I think it is working.

Looking forward to hearing your results!

Only an occasional ant so far.

I sprayed the ladys with half soda and half water before releasing them. Supposedly that will keep them from flying for a few days, long enough to get them laying eggs. Once they do that, the offspring will stick around. We shall see. Karen

Good luck. I've tried it before and they left after a few days, without leaving tons of eggs either. They had plenty of aphids and nectar of every sort too.

I've heard that ladybugs up north that are such a nuisance are different than what we have here. I think maybe they were called Asian ladybeetles. ?

This year I had several huge native sunflowers come up. I let them grow and noticed this year that their huge leaves had a lot of aphids but also started seeing ladybugs so I was ecstatic! I watched them daily and constantly found ladybugs, larvae and more eggs. I would move the adults and larvae over to my milkweed plants.

They stayed for a couple of months but then just all seemed to disappear. Then the Bordered Patch butterfly caterpillars took it over, which was another reason I didn't cut it down.

I tried an experiment yesterday too. I found a few milkweed that were virtually clean of aphids and put a piece of double sided tape around the base to see if that stopped any from crawling up it. ?? Just an idea. I'm becoming desperate too!

One can buy a whole bunch of ladybugs and store them in the refrigerator for up to six months and then release them as needed. It's a whole lot less expensive than buying them repeatedly in small batches. They become dormant in the refrigerator. The places that sell them, store them that way.

Well, today I found a few, but that's it. Unless they hide during the hot day and come out at night, I guess this might have been futile. Karen

I sprayed my plants with Good Bug Chow this year and have noticed that I have more ladybugs remaining in my garden after release and have also seen more larvae around.

I posted the link to the recipe here:
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/643488/

If you try it and notice a difference, please report back on that thread.

Just sprayed my affected plants with the sugar/water recipe on that site and hopefully it will bring my ladybugs back. Will let you know. Karen

tropical,

I had the same experience last year. Aphids everywhere, bought ladybugs. A few stayed around, but most of them died or left. I sprayed them with soda and water, released at night, the whole nine yards. This year I planted 3 kinds of yarrow and have had lady bugs and lacewings galore. Other than a couple of days of aphids early this spring, I haven't seen any.

As long as you continue to use no pesticides and plant some more pollen/nectar plants, I think next year, you should be fine. This is the 4th summer in my house and the previous owner used lots of pestcides. I have used none, and this year, I've finally seen an explosion in benefical bugs, frogs, dragonfly, etc.

good luck!

I am going to have to get yarrow.

My lot is organic because nothing was here before we built the house so I don't have to fight that fight.

Thanks for the advice!! Karen

This is from: http://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html . Wormwood should not be planted directly in the vegetable garden, but as a border plant in another bed, but this claims that ladybugs will breed on the Powis Castle variety. I have not tried this.

WORMWOOD: Keeps animals out of the garden when planted as a border. An excellent deterrent to most insects. A tea made from wormwood will repel cabbage moths, slugs, snails, black flea beetles and fleas effectively. The two best varieties for making insect spray are Silver King and Powis Castle. Adversely Powis castle attracts ladybugs which in turn breed directly on the plant. Silver Mound is great as a border plant and the most toxic wormwood. Note: As wormwood actually produces a botanical poison do not use it directly on food crops.
See More on wormwood. for more details.
For insect spray: See wormwood spray

I've always had several yarrow plants in both of my big beds and never saw any ladybugs on them. I've never seen any on my Artemesia either.

I've got tons of toads, butterflies, lacewings, bees, wasps, Robber flies, Hoverfies, etc. etc. but never a ton of ladybugs. Best bet is to get a big sunflower! :)

Karen, what plant(s) are the aphids on?

Most of the aphids are on milkweed. I cannot treat it with soap spray because I have cat eggs on them too. Do you find that the lacewings eat the butterfly eggs or cats? I am about to receive a ton of lacewings in the mail, but am now afraid to release them for fear they will kill my cats. Karen

That's what I figured, milkweed. I'm battling them now just like every year. Ugh! Because the milkweed actually attracts them, it's hard to deter them. I just try and stop them early but they come back and I can't do much this time of year.

I have a lot of green Lacewings and a lot of eggs on my milkweeds. Hmmm....now I'm wondering if all the little green larvae that I thought were Hoverflies might actually be the Lacewings. I'm going to have to get an expert opinion on this and I'll get back to you. They won't bother your cats or eggs. They just eat aphids, mealy bugs and things like that. The winged adults just feed on nectar and honeydew.

Well, they are released. But I am pretty sure I read somewhere that the green lacewings do eat cat eggs. Karen

The lacewing larvae will eat catepillar eggs, not the adults. Not sure if they would go for the aphids first. Here is some info on lacewings:


http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0598/et0598s9.html
http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/predators/chrysoperla.html

Good to see you are working these bugs! I tried a release of ladybugs and lacewings in the spring of this season. some stayed, some left and at the end of a week, no eggs and TONS of aphids.

I bought them from Gardens Alive who promised "stay at home" bugs. HHMMMMM. didn't stay at my home. My hubby reinforced that I am a good mom. :)

Where are you getting your good bugs?

I bought some stay home ladybugs from GardensAlive a few years ago. Most recently I bought some from OSH. I sprayed the good bug chow on the plants before I released them and although I'm not seeing the large numbers that I set out, I am indeed seeing more still on my garden then with previous releases. More imporantly, I'm seeing ladybug larvae all over the place! Yeay!

The one from GA didn't stick around long, but that was no fault of their own - it was a comedy of errors. My first mistake was to peep into the bag of ladybugs when I opened the package. Of course I did this in my living room (oops, don't try this at home) and they came pouring out of the bag faster than I could close it. So of course I was running through the house with my arms covered in beetles in a hurried attempt to get them outside. I managed to deposit most of them on my aphid infested petunia planter that was on the deck table.

They gorged themselves the first day and doubled up in amourous affection the next day. On the third day I noticed all the ladybugs lined up at the edge of the table. Apparently the aphids were wise enough to know that the ladybugs couldn't reach them if they stayed a few inches down on the vinyl tablecloth flap. I had a "bathrub ring" of green aphids around the table, with hungry ladybugs peering at them from above. Our course, the line of ladybugs now attracted the attention of the house finches who suddenly included my deck on their flight path. Perhaps the GardensAlive ladybugs would have stayed around longer had the birds not provided alternative transportation.

Well, got mine from Gardens Alive too. They sure aren't stay at home ladybugs, could barely see any today. Praying for my little cat eggs now. Karen

Interesting, I've yet to hear of anyone reporting great success in keeping ladybugs in their garden. I just ordered some from http://gardeningzone.com/ . The instructions with most of them do say to put them in the refrigerator for a while before releasing them. This slows them down, so they don't all fly away quickly. The garden's alive web site says to spray a mist of water first as well.

I do have lots of preying mantis'es that hang around, but they don't seem to make much dent in the aphid population, though I've been told that they do eat them.

That's very interesting about the lacewing larvae eating cats and eggs! I have never heard or read that before. After searching around, I am assured now that my larvae are Hover flies and not Lacewings. I did see one place that said Hover fly larvae will eat small cats but I've never seen them anywhere besides the very tips of new growth with all the aphids.

I'm going to have to bring some lacewing eggs in to observe them now. I see adults all the time but never larvae and they sure as heck aren't out there chowing down on aphids! Maybe something eats them? Maybe the Hover fly larvae? lol

I find the beneficial insects will readily take care or the aphids unless the ants are guarding them. The ants will attack and kill ladybugs and lacewings, including their larvae and eggs. I'm knocking the ants down with a boric acid bait in an ant station in the hopes of achieving a balance. I don't want to get rid of all the ants as they are needed for the soil too.

I don't currently have an ant problem. I had ants in my wine barrel planters, but I took care of them by using a Dr Bronners Euculyptus soap spray on the outside of the barrels to keep the ants from crawling up. I'll try the ladybug release. I haven't released ladybugs before, because I didn't have a big aphid problem until now.

A more interesting question that I'm looking at is why is my brix low enough, so as to allow aphids. I noticed most recently, after an application of compost, kelp meal, phosporus and alfalfa meal, that was when the the aphids came. My application was conservative and I feel that the the plants were deficient. I also have a sense that you are giving your plants adequate fertilzation. Do you still have any aphids after using the brix mix? Have you noticed any other changes in your plants since using the brix mix?

I'm suspecting the answer could be related to calcium deficiency. http://www.agrienergy.net/calcium.htm could be a bit heavy on the nitrogen too. I'm going to try a foliar spray of calcium.

Are you making your own ant stations and bait or buying a commercial product? If you buy them, which ones do you use? I've used boric acid near the outside of my house and inside where I made traps of peanut butter and boric acid for carb ants and molases and boric acid for sugar ants, but I've been relucant to use those in the garden due to concern about getting boric acid in the soil. I guess the traps could go outside the beds.

nataraj, I agree with you that I think we have a calcium deficiency in the soil this year. The only plants affected by the aphids are my okra, so I need to learn more about the nutritional needs of the okra plant. We've had to deal with spider mites (from an infested mulch that was brought into the garden) and some powdery mildew. All of these point to the calcium issue. The powdery mildew outbreaks decreased with I added more gypsum and microbes to the soil around the squash. It think it may be too soon to tell if the brix mix spray is making much of a difference with the aphids. It may be too late in the season. Also, I may not have sprayed enough on the okra, although I do note that they have increased the flower bud production since I sprayed it.

Our spider mite infestation is mild and currently tolerable. I've seen those purple and red spotted ladybug larvae hanging out on the potato vines, so they seem to be addressing that issue.

We'll be adding a lot of rock dust when we prep for the fall planting. I will also spray brix mix on some of the fall crop and not on others to see how much of an impact it is having.

nataraj, I made my own ant stations with lidded yoghurt and cottage cheese containers. I poked 1/8" holes in the sides near the bottom and put the boric acid sugar syrup inside the container and sealed the lid on. The small holes allow the ants to get in, but keep out the ladybugs, bees and lacewings. I had purchased the Terro sugar syrup bait to start. I'm going to have to start making my own as it seems I'll need to bait for awhile. We have a HUGE nest of Argentine ants under the community garden. It will take awhile to get the ant population knocked down to a balanced proportion.

My worst aphid problem has been on the okra's as well. That's where I first got caught with the ant/aphid thing. I also have some older kale plants that have attracted aphids as well, but they are soon to be replaced with the fall kale in another bed.

It would appear that okra and kale have higher requirements for calcium and/or some other minerals. I'll have to ponder that one.

That's interesting about the calcium deficiency. I don't grow veggies but will look into that.

Ants aren't usually the problem with aphids on milkweed tho. They certainly don't help the situation but the milkweed itself attracts the yellow aphids, so it seems to be a win/win deal for the ants.

I've got several different kinds of ants. I think I'll try that boric acid trick in the cup and see if that gets rid of some of them. I know they are beneficial in some cases but when they find their way inside it's time for some of them to go.

k-blond, you may want to read the raising brix thread on the organic gardening forum for some background. The calcium discussion has spilled over from a discussion started on that thread.

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/644208/


The argentine ants tend to get our of control quickly because of their culture of having multiple queens in the same colony.
Here are some links to recipes for home made boric acid/borax ant baits:

http://www.grinningplanet.com/2004/04-27/ant-control-ant-killer-article.htm
http://www.ecologycenter.org/fact_sheets/ant_control.html
http://www.ghorganics.com/page11.html

Wow, learning about brix is way more than my brain can handle right now. lol I've never heard of this but would like to learn about it some day.

Gardening is so much more complex than you think! When I first decided to replace my bushes and plant flowers I was surprised to learn that there were different kinds of soils, lighting for plants etc. It's been a wonderful learning experience for my whole family.

Thanks for the ant links. I'll go thru them and make some notes. Currently the battle is FIRE ANTS. Ugh!! We've finally got our much needed rain but it forced them all above ground. I'm thinking the drought might not be so bad now.

Take the information in small bites and chew well. Other wise you will get indigestion!

I seem to recall that fire ants are meat eaters, so the high protein peanut butter formula may appeal to them more than the sugar syrup. You could test this by putting a dab of peanut butter and a dab of sugar syrup near the nest or on their trail and see which they prefer before you mix any with boric acid.

I seem to recall that Victor Pest (part of Safer Brand) makes an organic fire ant control product. I think is has peppermint oil in it, but I'm not sure.

Fire ants are the one thing that I don't mind using chemicals on. I can use orange oil on them when they are close to the surface but in the summer when they go deep down underground the only thing that will get rid of them is something like Amdro. I have tried a product with Spinosad in it and I think that might be considered organic.

Fighting fire ants is like battling mosquitoes. Mounds of ants and West Nile bring out my Amdro and DEET. When the mosquitoes calm down I can use a product called Botanicals and it works good but otherwise they will pick me out of a crowd. :(

Try "Results" for the fireants. And Repel with lemon eucalyptus was reported on NPR as being as effective as products with DEET.

Thanks! I'll look those up!

On the calcium deficiencies in Okra and Kale, ...

From: http://www.vegedge.umn.edu/vegpest/colecrop/product.htm

All cole crops are subject to calcium and boron deficiencies and all require manganese, magnesium, and molybdenum to be present in the soil: cauliflower also requires copper.

Various nutritional databases report that Okra is high in calcium, so it seems obvious that it too requires good calcium.

Thanks for confirming the calcium relationship. We'll definitely be boosting soil calcium before putting in the winter cole crops.