SYRPHID - HOVER FLY, Garden Patrol Aphid Specialist

[applestar]

https://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/NE/syrphid_flies.html

Syrphid flies are a wonderful, dedicated members of your Garden Patrol. They are hardworking and report for duty starting very early in spring. So you want to be sure to have early blooming flowers and weeds, trees, and shrubs around your garden.

I'm having aphid problems on my tomato and pepper seedlings that were started inside because the spring thaw brought invading ants who brought their aphids to pasture on my seedlings. My indoor Garden Patrol of ladybugs and occasional aphid mummy maker wasps have been keeping them under control but not entirely, and I have been occasionally helping by picking them off with moistened bamboo skewer.

Now that the weather has been warm enough to harden the tomato seedlings off, they have been spending occasional overnights outside... And yesterday morning, when I was tsk, tsking over the aphids, I noticed a hoverfly making stops and reaching with the tip of her abdomen in the classic ovipositing motion. Later, as I was closely inspecting the seedlings, I noticed these


https://zebrachipscri.tamu.edu/image-gal ... predators/

Here's one more link : https://mint.ippc.orst.edu/syrphid.htm

[applestar]

I was using a moistened bamboo skewer to pick off some aphids from the tomato seedlings in the Garage V8 Nursery, and a particularly fat juicy aphid had a hoverfly larva already clamped onto it.

Luckily, I didn't hurt the young Garden Patrol so I carefully laid the bamboo skewer with the aphid (and the hover fly larva) attached to it back under one of the seedlings.

[applestar]

https://www4.ncsu.edu/~dorr/Insects/Pred ... r_fly.html

[applestar]

I think I mentioned this before elsewhere -- syrphid flies LOVE grass in flower. Right now my garden is absolutely full of syrphid flies.

I let lawn and other grass located where they can be allowed to grow send up flower stalks, just so they can attract beneficial insects. After they have finished blooming, there is a short window when you can cut/pull them without allowing the seeds to mature, and they can be used as mulch or put in the compost pile. If you've missed the window you can make drowned weeds.

But with lawn grass, you can always clip the seed heads after they have matured and scatter them where the lawn grass has gone thin or bare. Why buy grass seed when you can grow your own?

If you have quack grass, they are best cut up into small pieces and scattered along edge of garden beds for slug control.