I started off wanting to do a post about how lovely and huge my tomatoes are getting...
True Black Brandywine
Look at the size of these leaves!
After spending 30 mins inspecting Tomato Alley, I found the carnage shown below! Only one leaf looks this way right now, but the underside of the lower leaves are covered with what looked like eggs. I can't identify them, strange in that they are scattered, not laid in clusters. I went to go get my camera and used it to magnify what I was seeing, and in fact they now look like a bug to me - there is what looks like legs on them. They also resemble scale with the way they stick on the surface, but they are on the leaves and not the stems. When poked with a fingernail they resist like a shell and then pop juice out (sorry, LOL!) I really need y'alls help on this one! And in one photo is what looks like to me an aphid, but I have only seen green ones, are there red ones? So far I cut the worst branches off, handpicked any others, and inspected the others around them, they appear okay. I am guessing insecticidal soap will be my weapon of choice, but I would really like to know what they are. I took several photos hoping maybe one would be recognizable. Here's the buggers:
anyone?!
adding this also if anyone else is interested: cool pest id guide
I did find my red aphids on there, still don't know what the white/cream things are!
Ooohhh. Nice find. The white bugs are actually aphid carcasses. Another bug--a parasitic type laid it's eggs in the aphid. I recommend getting rid of the aphids that don't look like that, but you can probably leave the white ones since they contain beneficial insects...
ReplyDeleteBTW, those leaves are huge!!! Hope you have some nice juicy 'maters soon.
WOW, those are some crazy big leaves!!!
ReplyDeletemomma_s, I saw something about aphid carcasses on the internet but I thought they looked too big.... but how cool would that be? Like when I see a hornworm full of parasitic eggs I'm all "haHA look at YOU, sucker!-that'll teach ya!". I'm definitely going to go back and research those carcasses, they aren't moving, so I hope, hope, hope!
ReplyDeleteI looked it up, and it definitely looks like "parasitic mummies"! Yay! For anyone wondering, beneficial wasps insert an egg into the aphid, which the larvae then feed on until the aphid is mummified leaving the browish enlarged sac behind, after a few days you will see a hole in the mummy where the parasitic wasp emerged! How cool is that? I'm headed back out to save the few leaves with unhatched wasps on them, LOL! Thanks, momma! I just love those beneficials...
ReplyDeleteCrap. I've removed those from my eggplants that have been nearly destroyed by flea beatles.
ReplyDeleteDrat.
Thanks for the info. Now I wish I hadn't removed those carcasses from my plants. Anything that kills aphids these days are friends of mine.
ReplyDeleteMomma S you are amazing- and Erin, so are those tomatoes!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post... and a great comment/explanation from Momma_S! I only hope to find aphid carcasses on my tomatoes :) And wow, those leaves are HUGE!
ReplyDelete