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GREEN PEACH APHID (Myzus persicae), also known as spinach aphid. This
is an important species, quite injurious to peaches, potatoes, and
spinach, feeding on many other fruits, vegetables, and ornamentals, and
a vector of tomato mosaic and many other virus diseases. Shiny black
eggs winter on bark of fruit trees, hatching when peaches come into
bloom. The young nymphs are yellow green with 3 dark lines. After
sucking sap from twigs for 2 or 3 generations winged forms migrate to
garden plants.
Control. Spray widi nicotine sulfate and soap or TEPP.
IVY APHID {Aphis hederae). A dark-green, brown, or black species, quite
small, common on growing tips of English ivy. A weekly bath for
house ivies will keep aphids at a minimum, but if they get a headstart
you can kill them by aiming a pressure "bomb" (DX Aero-Spray) at the
tips, or you can bathe the ivy in a pail of soapy water.
MELON APHID {Aphis gossypii). A very cosmopolitan species and perhaps
our most destructive. This small species, dark green, varying to
yellow green, brown, or black, is common everywhere on cucumbers,
melons, and squashes, curling the young leaves and infecting them with
cucumber and melon mosaic. In the South it is serious on cotton and
citrus as well as vegetables and there works through the whole year
without an egg stage.
Control. Nicotine or rotenone sprays or dusts are fairly effective if
started before leaves curl. Make sure dust mixtures do not contain sulfur
as a diluent for this is injurious to cucurbits.
NORWAY-MAPLE APHID {Periphyllus lyropictus). This is the chief cause
of the sticky mess on cars parked along the street, for the large
green or brown aphids drop vast quantities of honeydew, sometimes the
leaves drop too, sticking to your shoes as you walk along the pavement.
Where towns can afford it street trees should be sprayed early in summer.
PINE BARK APHID (Pineus strobi). The white fluffy masses you see up and
down the trunk and on the underside of branches of white pine,
sometimes Scotch and Austrian pines, are covering small aphids. Lindane,
at the rate of 1 pound 25% wettable powder to 100 gallons of water,
1 tablespoon to 1 gallon, is now suggested. Older remedies are a dormant
oil spray or nicotine sulfate and soap applied with enough pressure to
break through the white felt.
POTATO APHID (Macrosiphum solanifolii), an important rose pest as well
as a potato problem. Black eggs winter on rose canes, and pink
and green lice appear on new shoots and buds in spring. Winged forms
migrate to potatoes in summer, curling foliage and sometimes killing vines,
and to tomatoes, sometimes preventing blossom set. They carry the virus
of mosaic and other diseases.
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Types of Garden Enemies
