Around winter time, these aphids attack many plants in my garden. Since I go organic in most methods, I don't care much since 3-4 years and I see that they control themselves in number vis a vis when I used to spray some insecticide. After I took this shot and loaded it to the PC, I was surprised to see a few legs there! I hadn't imagined that it had such clear legs, I thought it crawled. It leaves a sticky substance that makes the leaves black.
Another portion of the plant. It has even spread to the many infloresences but the blooms seem to be unaffected to a great extent.
ewwwwwwwwwwwww!! Some have a big white thing on them,,, what is that??
It's a white sticky thing that sticks if touched. Is it that sweetish substance that ants are attracted, i don't know.
The sticky substance is commonly called "Honeydew", and is exactly why ants raise aphids much like we do dairy cows.
"Ants raise aphids.."?? Nice comparison... tell me more, please.
It has been a long time since I read about ants raising aphids like cattle, and I can't even tell you now where to go for that info. However, the ants apparently protect the aphids and stroke them similiar to the way we milk cows so that they produce that sticky stuff, which is carried by the ants back to their nest. Perhaps someone else here can provide more details...it is rather fascinating.
Thanks Dinu and Lettuceman... my perception of the aphid will never be the same :-)
Those just don't look like aphids to me. They don't have the cornicles, or little stove pipes sticking up from the posterior area. And the white looks like egg sacs extruding from their rears. There are scale insects that do that. Cottony cushion scale comes to mind, although the bodies don't look like them. Another thought I had when I saw them was mealy bugs... Both of these insects, along with white fly, make honeydew. I'm gonna go looking....
Leaning more and more toward mealybugs....I found that there are species that produce the egg sacs.
Definitely don't look like aphids to me either
Any pictures of Aphids for comparison, please?
Here are some:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=aphid
They come in all sorts of different colors so look more at body shape, etc
Then I was under the wrong impression that what I have on my plants are aphids. Thanks very much for the useful link.
Just for general info to finish the ant story with aphids. In the winter the ants take the aphids down into their burrows and maintain over the winter. The ants are very smart, they gonan protect their food source. They will feed and clean the aphids over the winter then when spring comes or the first sign of green foliage the ants will brign the aphid s back out and plac e them on the plants.
Ever notic e how one day your plants are clean and the next they covere d in aphids? That how they get there. Soem ways to control the aphids is to kill all the ant hills now before they really have a hcanc e to emerge. Kill the ants the aphids can't get back up to the surface.
If your an organic gardener, grit s works great for killign ants. Just sprinkle dry grits on the mound and around the mound. Don't stir up the mound. If you do that then the ants first lien is to protect the queen and eggs and they will forget abotu the food, so just sprinkle it .
Give the ants about hour s to eat then hos e the heck out of the mound and aroudn the sides of the mounds. them tunnels extend a good distance under ground.
Another way to help stop the ants from removing aphid s from nests is to use wheat straw mulch. Not pine stra w but wheat straw. Ya it costs a bit more but is great for controllign thrips and aphids especially. Ther e is a chemicla in the wheat straw that tricks the ants and they don't brign the aphid s up out of the nest and so the aphid s starve and so do the ants.
So that the story.
Ants are beneficial insects in many ways. Fire ants, too, but that's another story, and I woudn't hesitate for a second to kill them. But I don't think that killing our native ants is a good idea. My understanding is that aphids give live birth, all female, until the fall, when they produce some males with whom they mate, producing eggs. The eggs are carried to the nests by ants, and overwintered. In the spring they take the aphids that hatch out back up to the plants, where they begin reproducing by parthenogenesis - no need for a male - and all offspring are female - again, until the fall. Taking care of the aphids after they have been placed on the plant in the early spring, will do the job. More will fly in at intervals (the female aphids will give birth to winged aphids when the colony is becoming crowded - to fly off and start another colony), and you always miss a few - after all, they are tiny and easy to miss. But persistence pays off.
Those aren't aphids. They're scale insects and those can be extremely challenging to eradicate.
Grrrrrrrrreat photos by the way!
Thanks a lot. That was quite a useful bit of information I did not know. I had wondered how those little white spots came all of a sudden. Now I have the answer. Ants...Mmmm.
Ummm, not exactly Dinu. Your little white spots aren't aphids.
I have understood, Equilibrium. Here is another picture of yesterday. The messy leaves!
I'm still leaning towards mealybugs. Which scale do you have in mind, Equilibrium?
My discourse on aphids was directed to starlight, not dinu. We had already ruled out aphids.
Hey ceejay, one that would make me shed a tear if it was on my plant in those numbers. Does this count as which one of hundreds? Mealy bugs are a form of soft scale. I have to run to work right now but I'm wondering what chemcials he would have available to him in India? I'm also wondering if "we" could legally send him anything to help if he doesn't have anything available that could nip this in the bud.
Presently, I'm thinking of cutting the plant and let it have a fresh growth. In fact, today marks the end of Winter here and the beginning of Summer, an event celebrated as 'Shivaraatri' (worship of Lord Shiva). So the summer months will have it growing slowly. It is expected to rain in March, instead of April, early monsoon this year is predicted. Since the plant has settled well, pruning it will do no harm, I reckon.
I'm not going to use chemicals as I want to go organic as far as possible.
Mealy bugs are not too fond of rubbing alcohol. Is that organic enough?
Dinu... Do you have some Neem oil or acess to getting Neem oil. India has acess to alot of chemical products. That is pretty organic and will help with the scale. You can also try using some dish soap.
Even with cutting back, you wil need to watch becase they get down below the soil surface level aroudn the base of the plant. and hide and will just munch away some more there when you not looking.
When you cut thos e leaves off, if you do, do it with a plastic bag or somethign to catch the leaves in so ya don't drop bugs and then burn it, (the sack of bugs , not the plant. )
Alcohol... will keep that in mind.
Neem oil.. Yes I can get it. I use neem cake for manuring. What I will do is use that with water to sprinkle on them and see what it does. That may not be a bad idea. But I'm now considering cutting it off as most of the leaves and the inflorescences are getting affected with that blackish colour that is very sticky.
