Aphid Control Techniques for Homeowners
Aphids are tiny insects that can do some serious harm to your lawn despite their small size.
Keeping a lawn healthy and green will, at some point, require aphid control. Very few people are lucky enough to go through their entire lives without needing to learn how to kill aphids. In order to successfully implement aphid control, you need to learn how to recognize aphid damage, and understand aphid life cycles so that you can hit them when they are at their most vulnerable. Whether the aphids are feasting your turf grass, your trees or flowers, you will want to bring them under control because they can and will spread quickly if not banished.
Recognizing Aphid Damage
Aphids do the most damage on plants by sucking the plant juices from the leaves with their piercing-sucking mouthparts. Normally you will see the insects themselves if you have problems with them, but if you do not, you will see what look like dry spots or patches on the leaves where they have been feeding. If you glance at the leaves of plants affected by aphids, from a distance, the leaves will appear lighter in color. Sometimes you will also see a lot of ants around, interfering with your aphid control actions because the ants “farm” aphids. Ants like the “honeydew” produced by aphids-a sticky excretion. This can turn black, growing a fungus called “sooty-mold,” another telltale sign of aphids.
Aphid Life Cycles
Aphids are soft-bodied insects that give birth to live young rather than laying eggs. (Though some species do overwinter by laying eggs.) They go through incomplete metamorphosis. The adults can give birth to as many as 12 young at a time, which molt, shedding their outer layer. The young are called “nymphs.” They can go from immature to mature in seven days, and can reproduce without mating. You can see how they could become a nuisance quickly.
Tips for Getting Rid of Aphids
There are a number of different schools of thought about how to kill aphids. Here are some of the most effective ways:
- Spraying the insects directly with a hard stream of water is a good method for temporarily getting rid of aphids. This does not generally take care of the problem for good, but it can disrupt the feeding enough to prevent wide-spread damage.
- Insecticidal soap works well for killing the insects because they are soft-bodied and the soap dries them out, killing them.
- Biological aphid control can be achieved with ladybugs and specific parasitic wasps.
- Professional lawn care companies can spray with other chemicals to control aphid populations, but this should be a last resort because those sprays also kill beneficial insects that help keep the population in check.
It is possible to have successful aphid control with a variety of biological and cultural methods, which will be best for controlling the problem in the long term.
