:: Aphid Control and Treatment

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The affection with aphids is more likely in spring, but you should observe your plants closely all year long. The small, most times greenish, suckers stay especially on the lower surface and close to the burgeon. After the affection with aphids it is important to react fast and not after they proliferated 100.000 times. There are various possibilities to prevent or to cure an affection.
ladybugNatural enemies:

Aphids are eaten by ladybugs and their larvae, hover flies, the common green lacewing and their larvae, the larvae of the ichneumon, the aphid fly, the kissing bug, the ground beetle, the chafer, the cantharides, the larvae of the firefly, spiders, and birds. Ladybugs and their larvae are very effective aphid eaters. Every bug devours in his live as a grub and his adultery several thousand aphids - a proud number.

Tip: Ladybirds and the common green lacewing are so popular as aphid eaters, that they are cultured and sold as larvae or eggs at the retailers.

Herbs also affect some aphid species: Savory keeps the black aphid away and lavender the rose aphid. Sometimes sage, thyme, hyssop or borage work.
Useful animals: Ladybird | Green lacewing | Gall midge | Slip wasp | Flower bug
Attention: Ants, wasps, hornets, bumble-bees, other insects and even some vertebrates use the honeydew of the aphids as a source of food. Ants even support the spreading of the aphids (symbioses between ants and aphids). Because of this the affection of ants should be antagonized at the same time.
Household remedy:

As a household remedy the spraying of a soapy solution, nettle brew or niemcore extract should achieve a fast and good success. Common are soap solutions of soft soap without synthetic ingredients (e.g. 100 gram curd soap and two liters of water) with the addition of e.g. tobacco brew, spirit, salt or even chilli or garlic.
  • At little affection with no damage it is enough to hose down the affected parts with a hard jet of water.
  • At middle affection it is recommended to soak one kilogram of fresh nettle for at least 24 hours in 5 to 10 liters of water and to spray it undiluted. Fern is also supposed to help against aphids with this appliance.
  • Nearly as effective as this is a soap solution of 100 gram soft or curd soap on two liters of water and 150ml of spirit. Cover the ground and spray only on the lower surface of the leaves.
  • Another working solution: Boil up the tobacco of a few cigarettes in an old pan until a brew results. Filter the boiled up tobacco and bottle the brownish, strongly of tobacco smelling water. Dissolve soft soap in the so created and still warm tobacco brew. Spray it on the lower surface of the plants undiluted.
  • At a stronger affection the use of niem or neem biologics turned out to be useful. Extracts of the niem tree are of biological origin and have a broad spectrum of efficiency against a great amount of varmints without endangering useful animals. Biologics of niem are available at the retailer or can be produced yourself easily with seeds of the niem tree.
Attention: When you use soap solutions or add spirit or salts, spray only on the leaves, cover the ground and avoid direct contact with the sun after the treatment!

Aphid prevention: Avoid warm and dry air, aim at a higher humidity.
Aphid Control
Female aphids give birth to million offspring without a prior copulation. Especially warm and waterless weather in the spring encourages the female to increase their population explosively. The one, who creates beneficial condition of living for various useful animals or fights the uninvited guests with self-made plant brew, can embank the lice plague. As soon as the aphids settled down, natural instruments can't affect them.
Insecticides for Aphid ControlInsecticides: Buy Aphid Control

A distinction is drawn between bait instruments, contact poison, breath poison, stomach insecticide and systematically working instruments. Plants absorb the systematically working insecticides either through the roots - by watering - or through the leaves - by spraying-, which spreads through the saps to the sprouts from which it reaches the sucking or biting varmints. Crucial is that the instructions for dosage and appliance are followed meticulously. You have to pay close attention to the necessary protective clothing; at least you should wear a mask. By no means you should spray while the wind is blowing or with the sun at its highest point. To summarize it, it is important to stress, that you have to deal with insecticides carefully and sparingly, and that you have to follow the instructions exactly in any case.
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