[Geordie]

Anyone ever bought lacewing or ladybird larvae to try and get rid of aphids?

Does it work?

 

[Little Miss Half the Plot]

Hi Geordie,

I havent, but I'm also interested to find out if it works or how well it works!  

I'm chemical free on my plot, so this could be a future option for me too.

Let us know how you get on, if you take the plunge!!

 

[love-my-plot]

I'm also chemical free and my plot is crawling with ladybirds.  I don't seem to have any real problems with aphids so the ladybird larvae thing MUST be working. Had some blackfly on the broad beans so pinched out the tops and moved the ladybirds to them to deal with any that got away  

[vegmandan]

I fancied doing it but when I saw the price I thought twice.

Especially as they could just fly away anyway and If you practice chemical free gardening there should be enough beneficial creepy crawlies to help.

[love-my-plot]

I agree, make the garden/plot more attractive to ladybirds to encourage them to come & lay their eggs there ...

[amberleaf]

We always have a lot of ladybirds on the allotments. Probably the hollow canes lying about offer them winter homes.

If you do buy the babies in, you might find that they leave home anyway as soon as they learn to fly.

[deedee71]

i watched some video on the internet about ants farming aphids and the ants carried away the ladybird! Look on this forum for 'ants' as there's brilliant advice there about getting rid of aphids. i'm not good at posting links, maybe someone could help?  :oops:

[Geordie]

I've spoken to someone on a helpline of a website that sells lacewing and ladybird larvae (http://www.greengardener.co.uk/index.htm) and they informed me that if you are going to introduce larvae to eat the aphids on a tree then they recommend putting a grease band around the tree to stop the ants getting up and protecting the aphids.

Apparently ants eat the sticky residue secreted/left over by aphids and will protect them from predators !

 

[sawnee]

I have heard about feeding the ants with something sugary, they dont need the sugary substance given by the aphids so they eat them instead :shock:
Maybe this is what Deedee was on about?
Cant see this working outside but possible in a polytunnel  :?

[amberleaf]

Last year I was 'resting' after a hard hour chatting to a neighbour on the lottie and watched these ants herd several groups of lady birds up the plum tree trunk.

Remembering grand dad always had tar painted around the trunk of his apple trees to catch crawling insects. (Dont know if it was actually 'tar' but it was black and they called it 'tar')  I looked around for something sticky. I found a roll of parcel tape which had found it's way into the shed for some reason and  put it tightly round the tree trunk sticky side in then went backwards and made a 6inch strip, sticky side out.

It took another hour of careful watching and when the whole sticky band was green with fly. I put on another sticky band.

About two days later I looked again and noted that the growth of stuck green flies on the bands had stopped. So I removed them and put on a fresh band.

Hardly any insects after that. Seems the ants had found out that the tree was now a no-go area and left it alone.
 
Must remember to re-band this year I didn't think it was a good idea to leave on the bands permanently in case they harmed the tree/bark.