Many insects and birds feed on aphids, and will likely rid you of the pest over time. Your best option is to have time and patience, and let nature take its course. If you do treat, garlic sprays may be an option. Most trees are going to be too big for spray equipment that is available to the homeowner to reach. You can treat for wooly aphids, but most likely it would be a job that would need contracted out. Aphids will rarely cause enough damage to a tree to kill it, and the infestations tend to not happen yearly. Luckily this is the case with other wooly aphids. You may also notice the white wax on the ground below the tree, as I did at Minnetrista. In the case of wooly aphids, you will also see the sticky, white wax substance they excrete for protection on the leaves and bodies of the aphids. Usually easily seen groups of aphids on the underside of the leaves. Sooty mold, a black fungus may be present on leaf surfaces. Honeydew, the sticky substance aphids secrete as waste, can be found on surfaces below the tree and leaves may be sticky. Stunted, curled, yellowed and distorted leaves. The signs of wooly aphid damage are also similar to other aphids’ species and can include the following: Wooly aphids will feed on leaves, stems, and twigs.
Like other aphid species, wooly aphids feed on the plants they live on by piercing the plant tissue with a needle like mouth part, and then sucking out the sap. Wooly aphids are a common pest insect that feed on many different types of trees in our area. This cottony looking substance was a sign we had a wooly aphid infestation. At first I thought a mower had hit a cigarette butt that someone littered, but after a closer look, that wasn’t what it was. 1962.A little over a month ago, I was looking around making notes about the needs of the gardens at Minnetrista, and I noticed what looked like little bits of cotton spread out on the ground below an oak tree. Literature: Johnson & Lyon 1988 Metcalf et al. Pest Status: Occurs on apples with susceptible rootstock or susceptible varieties medically harmless.įor additional information, contact your local Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service agent or search for other state Extension offices. Waxy masses can be preserved by freezing infested leaf specimens and storing them dry in a vial or small box. Aphids can be preserved in alcohol, although the waxy masses will dissolve. Woolly apple aphids have become a problem in areas of Texas where dwarf apple varieties have been planted using susceptible root stock. Rootstock of all but a few apple varieties is susceptible to attack. Heavily infested trees become stunted and may die. Underground, aphids cause large knots on roots on apple trees. Habitat and Food Source(s): Aphids become noticeable because of the woolly wax masses on wounds of the trunk and branches on apple, elm, hawthorn, mountain ash, pear and quince. Wingless males are produced in the fall and mate with wingless females, each of which lay a single overwintering egg. In summertime, females give birth to live young (parthenogenesis). There, they feed on wounds on trunks and branches and move to the root zone.
Wingless nymphs feed on new growth and twigs for two generations (May and June), producing winged forms that fly to other host plants (apple, hawthorn and mountain ash). Eggs are laid in bark cracks on elm in the fall and hatch in early spring. Winter is spent in the egg or young nymphal stages underground in root galls, and as adult egg-laying females on the branches and trunks of host plants. Life Cycle: Simple metamorphosis parthenogenic. Aphis ononidis, which has shorter hairs on that segment - only 0.3-0.4 times the basal diameter of that. The hairs on antennal segment III are 0.8-1.3 times the basal diameter of that segment (cf. Masses of woolly aphids infest the undersides of leaves on terminal growth, causing leaves to turn pale green and curl. Adult apterae of Aphis genistae are black, and have a black cauda and siphunculi, but are quite thickly coated with wax meal. At certain times during the summer, infestations can become noticeable on host plants such as Arizona ash in central Texas. Several other aphid species ( Paraprociphilus spp., Eriosoma spp., Stegophylla spp.) produce large quantities of woolly wax filaments and infest leaves of alders, elms and oaks. Scientific Name: Eriosoma lanigerum (Hausmann)ĭescription: Aphids are reddish-purplish, wingless or winged and covered with woolly, bluish-white wax masses. Wooly apple aphid, Eriosoma lanigerum (Hausmann) (Homoptera: Aphididae), damage to apple roots.
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