A very common phenomenon in spring and summer, which occurs in almost all plants, are aphids. Aphids are also referred to by the common names aphids and plant lice. Their pin-sized body is soft and has a pair of tubular protuberances at the back of the abdomen, called horns or siphons. Aphids look like small balls of white wool, their appearance is due to secretions of their wax glands. These are serious enemies of crops because they not only inhibit plant growth, but cause hyperplasia (tumors) and transmit diseases (viruses) to parasitic plants. They also deform the leaves, flowers and blossoms.
They are the most common insects found in the garden, which live and feed on leaves, shoots and flowers in almost all herbaceous ornamental plants, shrubs and trees and with their specially formed mouth molecules they pierce plant tissues and suck their juices. . During the sucking of plant juices, these insects release into the plant various toxic substances that usually carry many phytopathogenic viruses. So the damage caused to plants by aphids is direct and indirect. Both in the flowers of the garden, in the vegetables but also in the agricultural crops the indirect damages from the transmission of phytoparasitic microorganisms are bigger.
The greatest outbreak of aphid populations is observed in spring to early summer and autumn. With the high temperatures of the summer, their populations are significantly reduced, but they have already done their damage with the honey secretions, its excrement and the phytopathogenic viruses that they carry.
Dealing with aphids
The best way to control aphid populations is to monitor the plants and fight them properly at the beginning of the infestation. What we need to know from the beginning is that there can be no garden without aphids.
There is the chemical treatment, which we apply with preparations that are on the market and can be procured from the appropriate stores.
But in addition to chemical control there are many natural enemies that exist (predators, parasitic insects, predatory mites, insect pathogens, fungi and viruses) can act effectively on aphid colonies, not completely eliminating these insects, but reducing them. to such an extent that they do not cause substantial problems for ornamental plants.
