Hi folks! I have had my first “rid-of-aphid” experience with a foliar where I put some molasses, KNF scheme and Olive canning liquid in (a tab per litre) in. The reason behind it was that they are coloured black with iron-gluconate and we do not get easily chelated iron here (that is not EDTA). I had figured that the plants probably had an iron problem. I was worried about the salt, but it didn’t bother the plants. The aphids were gone in one day.

I sometimes wonder where they go to. I once had a pak choi for seeds that were hit by aphids very hard just before fully drying off in spring in the greenhouse, so any intervention would not have paid off. It was the same aphid that usually bothers the peppers. When I harvested the pak choi millions of them fell off and an army of them was crawling onto the tomatoes and peppers. This was the moment I really got scared. The were dead the day after – only empty shells.

Since some years I watch aphid predators change during the course of the year on the same aphid species. In some periods they get Entomophtora fungi, sometimes predatory wasps, sometimes lady beetles and other insect predators. If I import lady beetles into the greenhouse (the first hard hot spell is usually when I get a transient aphid problem on peppers if I am not at guard) at this time, they just run past the aphids and escape as fast as they can. I have heard that the large greenhouses have to be sealed in order to keep the predators locked in. Why should predators want to escape from paradise? I have seen lady beetle larve sticking to their hosts until they were stripped of aphids. So I think that the quality of the plant sap will influence the palatability of the aphid just the same way that the plant attracts pests.