I have terrible aphid infestation on my loquat tree. I am loath to use insecticides on fruit tree, especially when they are full of fruit as this one is. It has been almost 8 years since my last bad infestation, so the normal shops I would have gotten ladybugs from were either out of business or had not gotten them in yet. I ordered from amazon. It was a direct from the grower shipment, so I had no dead bugs and over the last two days, I planted nearly 6000 ladybugs on my tree.
For those of you that have never used ladybugs, they are best deposited near the trunk as near dusk as possible. They will eat their way to the top. If you plant them while the sun is out, they will fly away and you have just planted a crop that the neighbors will enjoy more than you will.
Ladybugs as a general rule, do not need to be replanted every year but this year I needed a new inoculation since I have an early sprouting evergreen in the garden now.
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3 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Great application tips on the ladies, thanks!
tinkercreek
Level 8
Mar 14, 2020
1
You're welcome. Comes from experience, experience is what you get from doing it wrong and having to apply several times before reading up on why they are all flying away.
Some fruit trees are aphid magnets. Having plums is a guarantee for aphids. One novel solution is to put sticky tape around and trunk or branch that may have access to ants. Ants actually herd aphids and actually milk them. Walk under an aphid infested tree and feel lots of sticky goo. I once had a raised garden under my plum and everything I touched was sticky.
A club I once belonged to had an entomologist give a talk. He showed us a true horror show - Ladybugs attacking and eating Aphids. The insect world is a really violent one.
JackPedigo
Level 9
Mar 13, 2020
5
Last night on my dispersal of the first 3000 ladybugs, I put them near the infestation tips, they started chowing down as soon as they hit the leaves. The ones I released today (overcast and drizzly) I put on the base of the tree. they hit the lower leaves and started eating like mad. You can see the congregation on the lower leaves in the pic.
crepe myrtles are also aphid magnets, thankfully i only have one left. my plum had a terrible infestation of squirrels, so I was never worried about aphids..
This site may be helpful.
RussRAB
Level 8
Mar 13, 2020
0
quite aware, of all of these, but it is good to remind everyone that there is more than one way to skin a cat.
@glennlab - What I was trying to find but didn't was a colored cup on a stick. I thought I had read that the sticky trap part was vaseline but all that referred to was this YouTube.
Not what I was looking for. Tried some different searches and found something much closer.
[jimlongscolumns.blogspot.com]
Vaseline isn't the tacky agent in this set up.
@RussRAB I've seen the yellow cup on the stick too, the ladybugs have worked for me in the past and normally last for several years after you get them established. So I'm going to stick with them for a while. [agnostic.com]
@RussRAB I was lookng for praying mantis, but it is still a little early for them to hatch out here, it looks like we are going to have another freeze next week. I also need to control the new ant mounds that showed up after the past rains. I appreciate your input, there is not a gardening season that goes by that I don't learn something new and I've been gardening for just over 60 years. (I got my first garden patch at 5) Thanks again for your input. If you ever want to get together and talk plants, I'm just down the road from you in Oak Cliff.
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