yellow aphids?

[Don Autry]

hmm, and this is a bad thing? is there some form of milkweek I am
unfamiliar with, or is this the same plant that grows wild all over
alabama, trashing pastures and sickening livestock. can we get some of
these aphids?
--
thanks to spam bots, my address is despammed, if you are a real person, you
should be able to figure it out.

CHIMERA952 <chime...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19971019022...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
> My immature milkweed plants suddenly started to wilt, and today I
realized they
> were covered with mustard colored bugs resembling aphids. Anyone have
any
> experience with these? I disposed of the affected seedlings in the
garbage.
>

[Bill Morgan]

In article <01bcdd6f$8fae3b80$76b7...@autrydl.msfc.nasa.gov>, "Don Autry"
<don....@gov.nasa.msfc> wrote:

> hmm, and this is a bad thing? is there some form of milkweek I am
> unfamiliar with, or is this the same plant that grows wild all over
> alabama, trashing pastures and sickening livestock. can we get some of
> these aphids?

> CHIMERA952 <chime...@aol.com> wrote in article

> <19971019022...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
> > My immature milkweed plants suddenly started to wilt, and today I
> realized they
> > were covered with mustard colored bugs resembling aphids. Anyone have
> any
> > experience with these? I disposed of the affected seedlings in the
> garbage.
> >

This is a bad thing if you are trying to grow milkweed as an ornamental, or
as a food source for butterflies. Kind of gets back to the old "what is a
weed?" question. In agriculture, a weed is a plant you don't want. To
someone else, the same plant is not a weed. Therefore, to those who see the
plant as a weed, an insect which eats that plant is a beneficial. To people
who see that plant as a crop, the same insect is a pest.

And if it is the same milkweed (Asclepias spp.), you already have those aphids.
If it is something else, you don't. (Although there are certainly Asclepias
somewhere there, even if there is a different local common name--meaning
that you have the aphids locally *somewhere*...)

Regards,
Bill

--
Bill Morgan
wtmo...@pilot.msu.edu
Center for Room Temperature Confusion

[Jim and Sheila Reed]

CHIMERA952 wrote:
>
> My immature milkweed plants suddenly started to wilt, and today I realized they
> were covered with mustard colored bugs resembling aphids. Anyone have any
> experience with these? I disposed of the affected seedlings in the garbage.

We get the same thing on our milkweed -- aphids show up and about two
days later the plants are covered with ladybugs and other beneficials
eating the aphids. A day or so later the plants were a bit bedraggled
but clear of aphids (and the ladybugs were smiling) :-). Milkweed seems
to be so hardy and willing to grow that we treat ours with benign
neglect; they bring in good numbers of monarchs and other butterflies
and new plants tend to pop up in unexpected places. Regards --

[Doug Yanega]

In article <19971019022...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
chime...@aol.com (CHIMERA952) wrote:

> My immature milkweed plants suddenly started to wilt, and today I
realized they
> were covered with mustard colored bugs resembling aphids. Anyone have any
> experience with these? I disposed of the affected seedlings in the garbage.

That is indeed an aphid which specializes on toxic plants; the name is
_Aphis nerii_, the Oleander Aphid. It is subject to predation by syrphid
flies, ladybugs, and lacewings, and parasitized by braconid wasps, just
like any other aphid. You can control it just like any other aphid.

Doug Yanega (dya...@mono.icb.ufmg.br)
Depto. de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciencias Biologicas,
Univ. Fed. de Minas Gerais, Cx.P. 486
30.161-970 Belo Horizonte, MG BRAZIL
phone: 031-448-1223, fax: 031-44-5481 (from U.S., prefix 011-55)
http://www.icb.ufmg.br/~dyanega/
"There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is
the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick