Any idea what these things are? Friend or foe?
Ants Herding Moths?
I know ants tend to herd aphids, but I've been seeing lots of ants scurrying around these strange moth/egg sack looking things on my sunflower leaves. The ants seemed to be organizing them but I couldn't really see them moving (no apparent legs).
Any idea what these things are? Friend or foe?
Any idea what these things are? Friend or foe?
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applestar
- Mod
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- Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)
A sucking pest that's always on sunflowers in my garden are leaf-hoppers, plant-hoppers and tree-hoppers. Like all sucking pests, they produce honeydew that ants will harvest. Those maybe plant hoppers, too.
When infestation is severe, or some like buffalo treehoppers cause enough damage to prematurely yellow and wilt even the big sunflower leaves. I sometimes disrupt them by brushing them off or plucking and squishing juvies (adult tree hoppers are too angular and too hard -- I drop and stomp on them) but at least in my garden spraying seems to be counter-productive and result in worse damage -- presumably because Garden Patrol do control them and spraying kills the beneficials.
You could also disrupt or kill the ants with ant bait/poison.
When infestation is severe, or some like buffalo treehoppers cause enough damage to prematurely yellow and wilt even the big sunflower leaves. I sometimes disrupt them by brushing them off or plucking and squishing juvies (adult tree hoppers are too angular and too hard -- I drop and stomp on them) but at least in my garden spraying seems to be counter-productive and result in worse damage -- presumably because Garden Patrol do control them and spraying kills the beneficials.
You could also disrupt or kill the ants with ant bait/poison.
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!potatoes!
- Greener Thumb
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Yesssss! That's so funny, I actually thought leaf hopper at one point but had never seen any that looked like this and when they weren't really moving I thought maybe they were egg sacks or something. All I could find online was information about ants and aphids so thank you for your help! I didn't realize that all sucking pests produce honeydew, but that definitely makes sense.
I used to catch leaf hoppers when I was a kid because I thought they were so cute. They are doing some damage to the ONLY sunflower that survived our groundhog massacre so I might have to do some stomping
I used to catch leaf hoppers when I was a kid because I thought they were so cute. They are doing some damage to the ONLY sunflower that survived our groundhog massacre so I might have to do some stomping