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Bugs eating apple tree

Surrey1972Surrey1972 Posts: 14
in Problem solving
This year has been quite bad, buxus full of caterpillar, privet eaten by fungus and now bugs eating apple tree. Last December and February I used a winter wash for fruit tree and I applied the grease band, I also have a trap coding with bait for apple tree but here we are again, leaves start to be full of bugs and curling and dry up, I took some pict of those with mobile and microscope, see below, what are those animals and why they keep coming despite the wash and traps? How do I get rid of those fellows?



Posts

  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,385
    edited May 2020
    And you can't stop them from appearing as they have an adult stage which fly (which is why they are also known as greenfly.)  Most of the wingless ones you see on the tree are clones which the females bear live in a form of sexless reproduction called parthenogenesis.  Every one of those will also start bearing live young once they have grown up.  Ants carry the newly born aphids around the tree to the growing tips so that they have lovely fresh new foliage to feed on, and feed on the aphid excreta which is mainly sugars they can't digest in the sap they suck.  If you can somehow stop the ants from climbing your tree, the problem will be hugely reduced.  A well-fitted grease band around the trunk can work, but if there is a gap big enough for one ant to cross it, it will be completely useless as ants are 'programmed' to try every possible path between food and home if one is blocked and then mark that path with pheremones for the colony to follow.
    Sorry, rambling a bit. :D
    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,385
    Both I think pf! :D
    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • Surrey1972Surrey1972 Posts: 14
    Cheers for the info, I'll put a sign on the tree to remind them social distances  :#
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