Good morning, If you are a gardener and have never had aphids, it could easily be assumed that you have not been gardening long. If you garden you will have aphids.
Aphids do not need males to reproduce. Each aphid is born with fertilized eggs. and are able to give birth to ever more aphids in a brief amount of time. As the temperature rises so does the speed at which they can reproduce. Uncontrolled populations can very quickly explode.
It is only when the populations get too dense that they begin to grow wings and then disperse further. but this is not the only way that they disperse. Quite frequently small ants will relocate them to farm them and harvest the honey dew that they produce. Any time that you see an ant trail going up into a tree or any other plant, you can bet that there are aphids somewhere. These ants can be quite aggressive at protecting their "farm" so to speak.
Depending on population sizes and temperatures natural predators can and will take care of them. And during the spring it is not uncommon to see the "tracks" of the aphidius wasp. These are little gray-green bumps on the underside of leaves. they are usually located in the middle of a bunch of aphids.
Aphidius wasps will lay an egg inside of an aphid which then turns the aphid into a mummy. I have not seen a population of aphids that these cannot control. it wasn't too many winters back when I thought I was going to spray an explosion of aphids on my spinach only to see them gone the next week in totality. I have never seen the wasp but their handy work is very obvious.
Lady bugs control aphids as long as they are garden naturals. In the past I have purchased lady bugs with iffy results. My beds are covered so this helps keep them "confined" some what. What works best is on the day of their arrival spritz the cloth bag they are in so that they can get a drink. Then over the course of 3 nights first water the foliage and then release 1/3 of the bugs. The water fabric and night time release will keep a portion but still find them leaving. What has worked best for me is to find a population in the garden and transplant some of these lady bugs into the desired bed.
In the spring I have found that the English house sparrows (that I curse at the rest of the year) can clean up an aphid infestation in a morning quite easily.
My beds are covered most of the time. Part of this is due to a pair of guinea fowl that insists on "harvesting" anything green in the garden. I can leave the covers off if I am in the garden, otherwise.... , so I do resort to sprays on occasion.
It is wise to rotate with any pesticide (even organic) so that the bugs do not build up immunity. There is one that I know of that insects can't build an immunity to and that is cold pressed neem oil (NOT to be confused with clarified hydrophobic neem oil). It is the hormones within cold pressed that kills the bugs, they just stop feeding and molting. Cold pressed usually takes some time to show results.
Other sprays include: Pyganic, this has impressive knock down capabilities. It is a pyrethrin spray derived from a flower. After using this I will use either Cold pressed neem or mycotrol which is derived from a soil bacteria.
Sprays are used reluctantly and with proper personal protection. Although it is very interesting to note. Since starting to use Cold pressed neem oil I have found that beneficial insect have increased quite dramatically in the garden. Save for when the oil is sprayed it only targets the insects that feed on the plants. Since beneficial insects do not feed on the plants they are unaffected
When spraying I highly recommend only doing it of an evening because this is when MOST of the good guys are least active. .
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