About this product
The aphid midge is about 2mm long and easy to overlook, which is the opposite of what it produces. The adult female hunts out aphid colonies and lays her eggs directly beside them, and what hatches a few days later is unmistakable: bright orange larvae working through the colony. Aphidoletes aphidimyza feeds on up to 60 aphid species, including blackfly on broad beans and dahlias, greenfly on roses and lupins, cabbage and lettuce aphid, woolly aphid on apples and the usual greenhouse populations.
It comes as cocoons in a small ventilated box. Tear open the back, put the box in a shaded spot among the affected plants or hang it in the branches, and angle the opening so rain cannot collect inside. The adults emerge over several days. There is no spraying, mixing or watering in. Roughly one cocoon per square metre is the standard rate. Opening the box at dusk gives the first adults a calmer start than the middle of a hot afternoon.
What makes it different from a one-off release is that it keeps going. Larvae feed for 7 to 16 days, drop into the soil to pupate, and a new generation of adults emerges 10 to 14 days later. Given enough aphids to feed on, the population sustains itself across several generations.
It needs an existing aphid problem to work. The adults feed on aphid honeydew, so releasing them into a clean greenhouse achieves nothing. It performs best at 20 to 26°C with reasonable humidity; dry air shortens adult life, which runs 7 to 10 days. Outdoors it is an April to September control. In a heated greenhouse it works year round.
Release at the first sign of aphids rather than waiting. A small early dose prevents what would otherwise need heavy intervention later. For an infestation that is already established, stagger the doses over a few weeks instead of releasing everything at once, so there is a continuous adult population and something for the second generation to emerge into.
Do not wipe the orange larvae off your plants. They are the treatment working, not a new pest. The 250-cocoon pack is available March to September; the 1000-cocoon pack year round. Live products cannot be returned.
